Stimulating Understanding of Computational science through Collaboration, Exploration, Experiment, and Discovery for students with Hearing Impairments
a collaboration of the Shodor Education Foundation, Inc., Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf, Barton College, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and Interpreters, Inc.

For Teachers!

Extension

If you have a pond near your school you may be able to collect your own daphnia. Get a brine shrimp net from a pet store. Run the net through the shallow water and under the leaves of plants. Put the net in a jar of water and look for small moving creatures. You will probably get Cyclopes,  etc. If the water quality is good, you may find daphnia. You can also order them from laboratory supply houses like Carolina Biological.  

This site provides a brief description of daphnia and instructions for raising them in the classroom. 
http://www.pnl.gov/ecology/EP/Aquarium/daphnia.html 

This site has information on several small crustaceans that can be found living with daphnia. 
http://naturalaquariums.com/inverts/smcrust.html 

Daphnia are important to environmental scientists because they are sensitive to toxins. A polluted pond won't have any daphnia. Since daphnia are clear, your students can see their internal organs, including their hearts. Your students can observe the effects of different chemicals on the heart rate of daphnia. This site gives a lesson plan for using daphnia to investigate drugs like nicotine, caffeine, aspirin, alcohol, and sleeping pills on the heart rates of Daphnia. 
http://www.wested.org/werc/earthsystems/biology/daphnia.html 

Developed by
The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

Copyright © 1999-2001 by The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

This project is supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation.