Today’s lesson focused on bridging student learning about extremophiles and our field trip set for this coming Monday. We set our sights on defining “extreme environments”, learning about what makes an environment extreme and also about how some organisms are specially adapted to live in such environments. The PowerPoint introduced students to the concept of a Bell-Shaped Curve, challenged them to articulate their own ideas about what constitutes extreme, and then provided an opportunity for discussion around how statisticians define “normal” and whether our own perspective about whether something is extreme necessarily involves judging an individual who looks or acts extreme. We concluded the lesson after slide 26 and will complete the slide deck tomorrow.