Toxin Trials
NGSS MS-LS1-5
Read the standard: MS-LS1-5
Run fair tests on bean plants and young mice with lead, road salt, weed killer, or a mold toxin, and see how genes and the environment shape growth.
About This Interactive
What do students do?
Students run a fair test in two settings side by side, a greenhouse of bean plants and a row of cages with young mice. For the plants they choose lead in the soil, road salt in the water, or weed killer drift, and for the mice lead in the drinking water or a mold toxin in the food. Then they set a dose and pick a genetic variety, a regular or salt-tough bean and a small or large mouse family. Each trial plays 28 days as a time-lapse, with a control group beside every experimental group. Students read bean heights off a ruler, check the roots through clear pots, weigh the mice, and watch an exploring score, while a graph follows each group's average day by day. Repeated trials never come out exactly the same, so students compare averages, and at the highest lead dose they see that harm to any one mouse can only be described as a chance.
What does it cover?
NGSS MS-LS1-5: construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms. Students build that explanation from their own trial data. The toxin and its dose are the environmental factor, and the bean variety and the mouse family are the genetic factor. The two work together in the salt trials, where salt-tough beans keep most of their height in salty soil that leaves regular beans less than half as tall. Genes appear only as inherited varieties and families, which keeps the lesson inside the standard's assessment boundary. Doses and effects are based on published studies of these substances, so students see realistic patterns, like lead in drinking water barely changing a young mouse's weight while it cuts how much the mouse explores. Key vocabulary: growth, environmental factor, genetic factor, variety, toxin, dose, control group, experimental group, fair test.
How long does it take?
20 to 30 minutes for the quick version, or one 50 minute middle school lesson that opens on a photo mystery about roadside evergreens browned by road salt, then has the class test a community garden's suspects on plants and on young mice.
What does it run on?
Every SciMinis interactive runs free in the browser with nothing to install and no accounts, on Chromebooks, laptops, tablets, and phones. It's fully bilingual: one tap switches the whole interactive, worksheet included, between English and Spanish.
What do teachers get?
Each interactive ships with vocabulary flashcards, a ten-question worksheet students can export as a PDF, and complete NGSS-aligned lesson plans: a 20 to 30 minute quick version and a full timed 5E lesson. The lesson plans and answer key stay behind a free teacher password, so students can't peek.