Are You Drinking Death?

This webquest allows students to discover links between sugar intake and human diseases.  This is a discovery webquest, so it is not clear to the students from the outset that there is definitely a problem.  The webquest is framed as a student investigation of a controversial topic.  Chemistry students will also have the opportunity to perform a lab experiment.  The webquest is designed to take two weeks.  The first week is dedicated to guided research and the second week is for analysis, presentation, and debate.

Standards

California State Standards in High School Chemistry:
2.a. Students know atoms combine to form molecules...
3.a. Students know how to describe chemical reactions...
6.a. Students know the definitions of solute and solvent.
6.b. Students know how to describe the dissolving process at the molecular level...
6.d. Students know how to calculate the concentration of solute in grams per liter...
6.f. Students know how molecules in a solution are separated or purified by the methods of chromatography and distillation.
10.a. Students know large molecules (polymers) such as proteins, nucleic acids, and starch are formed by repetitive combinations of simple subunits.
10.b. Students know the bonding characteristics of carbon that result in the formation of a large variety of structures...
Also, students will practice several of the California State Standards in the area of Investigation and Experimentation.

Credits

The authors of this webquest are high school teachers Chris Bushee, Golden Zheng, Erin Jiang, and Yuan Zhang. We would like to thank the workshop leaders: professors Dr. David Unruh, Dr. Evelyn Young, and Dr. Stephen Brownson. We would also like to thank UCLA's California International Education Foundation.