Welcome to the Legacy Cycle Website!

This website showcases Legacy Cycle projects from Dr. Petrosino's Advanced Topics in Science and Mathematics Education classes.

What is the Legacy Cycle?

The Legacy Cycle uses challenges as anchors for learning. The challenges are designed to create an increasing depth of knowledge in a specific subject, with each challenge presented as one cycle of the Legacy shell. The combination of well-designed challenges and meaningful learning activities provides a rich environment for both the students and the instructor.

The six steps constituting the cycle of Legacy are:

1. Look Ahead and Reflect Back, which allows students to see where they are going and to reflect back on where they have been; for example, students are able to see how the concepts underlying any given challenge map into the taxonomy of knowledge for solid biomechanics.
2. Generate Ideas allows students to explore, within a group setting, their initial thoughts and ideas about the challenge at hand.
3. Gather Multiple Perspectives gives students the opportunity to listen to experts in the field describe their own hypotheses and ideas about the same problem.
4. Research and Revise allows students to test their own hypotheses concerning a challenge; for example, through advanced computer-based simulations, students are able to vary parameters of a model and study the effects that these changes have on model performance.
5. Test Your Mettle provides a means of formative assessment, allowing students to reflect on what they have learned thus far, and to identify any weaknesses or misconceptions they still may have. 
6. Go Public encourages students to share their thoughts and ideas with their peers and provides a summative assessment.

Create a Legacy Cycle project

To create a Legacy Cycle website, click Login at the top of this page to register and log in.

Legacy Cycle projects

Click one of the sections below to display projects aimed at that grade level:

Summer 2009 Projects

• Air Rockets
• Learning Statics through Bridge Building
• Let It Rain!
• Rockets
• Sunshine Valley Water Distribution
• Wheel and Axle Design Cycle

Summer 2008 Projects

• Cells
• Evolution
• GM Foods
• Lost in Space
• Math Modeling
• Mathematical Models
• Seasons
• You Make Me Sick

Summer 2007 Projects

• Is Pluto a Planet?
• Polar Bear
• Let's Get Mapable, Mapable
• Plate Tectonics and The Rock Cycle
• Biomechanics of Breathing
• Sound Off On Sound
• The Mystery of The most Valuable Resource
• Speciating the Species by the Seashore