Biology IA Labs

[CommeDesEnfants]

I was wondering about how exactly the IA lab component works for Biology HL. According to my teacher, our IA mark, other than the 6% that will come from Group 4 and manipulative skills, will apparently comprise of our two best labs. These labs will then be up for moderation. However, what I've discerned from my chem class is that our best marks from each section (DE, DCP and CE) will be submitted as our IA marks as opposed to the complete labs themselves. For example, if I got 6/6 on DCP for one lab but I got 5/6 on the CE section and then for another lab I got 5/6 on DCP but 6/6 on CE, then for my IA marks, I could simply use the best marks for each section out of all the labs I've done. Is this even true? Which one is the valid way of assessment?

Also, do the topics for our labs really have to be "original?" All of our labs are design labs; we get a general question, and it's up to us to form research questions and procedures. Our teacher is always stressing the importance of "originality" in our labs, but for a lot of the topics, there isn't a whole lot that we could really do. For example, one of our topics was analyzing the effects of abiotic factors on the rate of transpiration in green plants... Pretty obvious, and there's not exactly a whole lot that we could really do with it anyways. I'm just wondering because I already have 3 labs where I got 6s in all 3 categories, but my teacher is still making me write at least one more since apparently 2 of the topics I did weren't "original" enough. I'm guessing my teacher simply doesn't want us to copy off of each other or find lab ideas from the internet and be suspected of malpractice, but I haven't seen anything that says we need to find the most obscure topics. Given our limitations and research topics, it'd be practically impossible to derive a research question that NOBODY'S ever done before.

[sweetnsimple786]

Originality? Wow haha. My teacher has no standard like that. As long as it's plausible, it's fine. It doesn't even have to provide really accurate results. Originality is good for when you've mastered the topic and you have the time. It's really not possible for us because we have 30-40 minutes to do a design lab. We don't get to do any prep for it. If our teacher allowed us a day to do it or something, I could see why originality would play a bigger factor. And I agree, but perhaps your teacher isn't asking for something brand new. "Original" is quite subjective, if I'm interpreting it correctly in this sense. I'd think that you want to stand out from your peers, not stand out from the world. For transpiration, yeah there are like four main factors. I'd guess humidity is the least common, though. This is where randomness comes in though, since you're trying to be different from your classmates. They might all think "oh humidity is the least common, so I'll do that," and you'd be back at Square One.

Maybe if the full lab report has all/most of the components, then the teacher can get away with this. For physics, our teacher turned in two reports where we did design, DCP, etc in all of them, plus the G4 one. For biology, we have labs that are pure design, and the others are everything else, so I think it'll be separated like that. I don't think there's one way only. As long as the teacher assesses each category and I guess at least a part of the lab for each category is turned in to be moderated, it's fine.

[deissi]

The Group 4 IA (at least for Bio, Chem and Phys, HL & SL) is marked out of 48 points.

A maximum of 6 points (out of 48) come from the Group 4 project

A maximum of 6 points come from your individual skills, assessed holistically throughout the course by your teacher.

A maximum of 12 points come from your two best Design grades. Say you had 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, 2, 2 from your design labs. You would then get 5+6 = 11/12 points for design.

A maximum of 12 points come from your two best DCP grades.

A maximum of 12 points come from your two best CE grades.

The maximum grades for each sum up to 48 points. Obviously whatever you get out of 6 or 12 in each part will be calculated towards your final mark, so it might look like

6+5+10+10+8 = 39 / 48 (low 7).

The grades your teacher gives, as you know, are subject to moderation.