Look for: ​: Students’ completed Progress Trackers give…

​: Students’ completed Progress Trackers give an opportunity to assess what they have figured out during this lesson. Look for the ideas called out in the sample Progress Tracker above. Specifically look for students to be including what they figured out about the structure and function of nerve cells and the nerve system.

If students have incomplete or missing ideas in their Progress Trackers, remind them to review the reading Reading: The Body’s Nervous System and the Obtaining Information from Scientific Text handout to look for and document the information they found in the reading. They can also revisit the How Does the Foot Heal Over Time? poster and the Our Body as a System poster for additional support.

Student explanations approaching, but not yet reaching proficiency, might not include what they figured out about the structure of the nerve cells, the function of the nerve cells, or how the structure supports this function. In these cases, prompt students to think back to the activities they did with a partner using the paper clips and ask them what they experienced. In addition, you could ask them to think back to the activity they did with the class squeezing hands and what this helped us figure out about how the structure of nerves helps them perform their function.

Revisit the Driving Question Board. ​If your students added questions about nerves to the DQB that they are now able to answer, take a few minutes to revisit the DQB. Read through the questions we added, as well as those in other categories that we have worked through in previous lessons, and mark those that we can answer with a checkmark. When time allows, either this day or another day, have students work in groups to document answers to these questions on 5x8 index cards or 6x8 sticky notes.

It is also likely that students have additional questions to add to the DQB from their reading today or about the role of nerves in the process of healing. Take time to let students add these questions now.

Discuss possible next steps.​ Show slide R and ask for student volunteers to respond to the prompts:

What have we figured out about nerves? What do they do and why are they in different parts of the body?

What do we need to figure out next?

Affirm student ideas and listen for students to say something about the structure and function of nerves. Say, We have figured out that they are made of lots of nerve cells that transmit signals through tentacle-like arms throughout the body. But, as we think about the role of nerves in healing, we know that there is more that we need to figure out. If we revisit our healing timeline on the How Does the Foot Heal Over Time? poster, what do we see as evidence about how the nerves healed? Encourage students to look back at the timeline component of the How Does the Foot Heal Over Time? poster for any moments when “feelings” are mentioned.

If the timeline is missing information regarding “feelings,” revisit the doctor’s notes regarding the nerves. Suggest to students that they look for instances where the doctor mentions “feeling.” As students share, point to various points on the timeline to highlight moments from the doctor’s notes.

Listen as students share and then say, We know from the doctor’s notes that feeling in the foot doesn’t completely return, even when the skin, muscle, and bone have healed. And, let’s also remember from the images in this lesson that there are gaps between nerve cells. Could it be that these gaps between nerves in the injured student’s foot got bigger, or that some of the nerve cells were destroyed and he now has to wait for them to come back? Give students a moment to think and respond to this prompt.

Sample student responses:

Yes! Like when we did the activity where we were holding and squeezing hands. When we let go, the signal stopped. It’s like the gap between two people was too large.

Maybe with the injured foot, the nerves are still there, but now they are too far apart. This doesn’t let any feeling travel from the foot to the student’s brain.

Or, it could be like with the skin where we need to wait for new skin to form where there was an open cut. Maybe we need to wait for new nerves to fill in the opening or gap?

After students share, say, It seems like the nerve cell’s structure helps contrib…