KHAEMENES ACADEMY · BIOLOGY 10 · WEEK 35 · DAY 01

Capstone Problem Framing & Stakeholders

Turn a broad biological concern into a bounded, evidence-based design problem with criteria and constraints.

Safety, ethics and evidence boundary

Capstone work must remain low-risk and teacher/parent approved. No human-subject research, personal health/genetic data, biological culturing, animal manipulation, hazardous chemicals, mains electricity, weapons, or procedural gene editing. Public sources must be cited; private or sensitive locations/data must not be exposed.

Explicit science instruction

An engineering/science capstone begins by defining the problem: who is affected, what biological system is involved, what outcome is desired, and what constraints cannot be ignored. A criterion defines success; a constraint limits possible solutions.

Problems should be framed narrowly enough to evaluate within available evidence and safely enough for student work.

Vocabulary: stakeholder; criterion; constraint; system boundary; need; tradeoff; success metric.

Worked example with reasoning

Broad topic: pollinator decline. Bounded problem: “Design a schoolyard planting recommendation that increases season-long floral resource availability using only non-invasive species, a fixed budget, and no pesticide use.” Criteria become measurable.

Guided question

Why is “solve biodiversity loss” a weak capstone problem statement?

Independent work

  1. Choose an approved theme.
  2. Define system boundary.
  3. List stakeholders.
  4. Write three criteria and four constraints.
  5. Define one measurable success metric.

Misconception check

A compelling topic is not yet a design problem; success must be measurable and constraints explicit.

Formative understanding check

Criterion versus constraint?

Worked response

A criterion measures desired performance; a constraint is a limit the design must obey.

Open-book formative practice only; not an official mastery attempt or grade.

Mentor evidence conference

Ask Archaemenes to challenge the evidence, stakeholder assumptions, quantitative model, tradeoffs, and revision criteria.

Open Archaemenes

Teacher guidance

Foundation: use a problem-framing template. Core: write measurable criteria and constraints. Extended: map conflicting stakeholder objectives and system boundaries.

Preserve learning evidence

Keep data, design choices, corrections, stakeholder reasoning, and uncertainty in the matching Week 35 evidence field.