Students will launch the investigation by collecting firsthand evidence about emotional change during the petting zoo experience, then use early neuroscience vocabulary and expert input to build an initial claim about how thoughts, choices, brain activity, and chemicals connect to feelings.

Students will analyze petting zoo observation records, build stronger neuroscience vocabulary, refine investigable questions about emotional control, and develop a testable hypothesis that links thoughts or choices to brain structures, chemical responses, and emotional change. They will compare evidence quality, use peer and teacher critique to improve question design, and complete a graded question-and-hypothesis checkpoint that prepares them for planning methods in the next phase.

Students will design and peer-review a credible evidence plan for investigating emotional control, using structured observation tools, source-based neuroscience reasoning, and CER planning to decide how they will collect, organize, and justify evidence in the next phase.

Students will collect a new round of observation and interview evidence, test the quality of their methods and records, and verify whether their developing explanations about brain structures, chemical responses, and emotional control are supported by traceable evidence before moving into analysis.

Students will analyze patterns and anomalies in their emotional-control evidence, test interpretations against peer and expert-informed criteria, revise their before-and-after concept map, and prepare a public-facing expo station with evidence-based conclusions, limitations, and clear neuroscience explanations.

Students will present their final neuroscience explanations to an authentic audience through the Mind in Motion Expo, defend a claim about emotional control with evidence from their investigation and expert input, and complete a final annotated concept map assessment plus reflection on how their thinking changed.