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As a group, choose a scientific phenomenon that you can make use of to turn into a mystery. Some examples have been provided for you to pick from, but you may also suggest your own ideas.

EXAMPLES (Yes, I know they are all about food - the sad fact is that I don't really know anything about Science ;_; --ZH)

1) Elephant Foot Yam - This yam is considered nutritious and offers the best substitute for meat. However, someone inexperienced may encounter trouble with it.

The peels from Elephant foot yam contains tiny crystals of calcium oxalate and saponins. These are found abundantly in the peels and inner vegetable tissues. They ooze out when the yam is cut. On contact, they can cause the skin to itch. When consumed, they can cause itchiness in throat and mouth.

To avoid this issue, before peeling the yam, you should ensure that you do not wash it, as the wet surface makes it easier for the juice to flow out to affect your skin when you are cutting or peeling the yam. You could also use rubber gloves while cutting them or you could boil the whole yam before handling it.

2) Cassava (tapioca) - Many plants -- including apples and peaches -- produce cyanide as a natural form of protection against pests. The cassava plant has a sweet form as well as a bitter one that is high in cyanide. In certain parts of the world, farmers prefer to grow the bitter, high-cyanide ones, because they discourage insects (and thieves — who avoid the roots that require laborious processing) from stealing their harvest.

Unfortunately, the poor and malnourished who survive on  this type of bitter cassava will suffer from konzo, a paralytic disease, as a result of cyanide poisoning.

The skins of unprocessed cassava roots actually contain sulfur-containing proteins that would help people who eat cassava metabolize cyanide in the root, but the skins are usually removed when the roots are prepared.
Those who suffer from konzo often are surviving on little other than cassava and may also not be processing the root properly, since detoxification requires an abundant water supply.

https://source.wustl.edu/2010/07/beware-the-smell-of-bitter-almonds/

3) Inky Cap Mushrooms - The common ink cap mushroom is so-called because it can be used to make ink. It is also an edible mushroom that can be quite delicious. However, don't let your guard down around it - if you plan to feast on these mushrooms, you have to ensure that you do not drink alcohol three days before and three days after you eat the mushrooms.

Doing so may induce alcohol poisoning, as the mushroom contains a substance that interferes with your body's ability to metabolize alcohol. Alcohol poisoning can result in a whole host of terrible side effects, including vomiting, hot flushes and even heart attacks that lead to death.

https://naturespoisons.com/2014/04/10/coprine-alcohol-poisoning-from-mushrooms/

4) Hot sauce and insomnia - Hot sauce contains capsaicin, which is the active ingredient in chili peppers. Capsaicin raises your body temperature, which can give you problems with sleeping if you eat it just before bed.

5) Miracle Fruit - Synsepalum dulcificum is a berry from Africa that can make sour things taste sweet.

The pulp is filled with a protein called miraculum, which temporarily tricks the sweet receptors in your taste buds to read acidic flavors as sweet.

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In murder mysteries, the detective usually diagnoses cyanide poisoning by the scent of bitter almonds wafting from the corpse. The detective knows what many might find surprising - that the deadly poison cyanide is naturally present in bitter almonds and many other plants used as food, including apples, peaches, apricots, lima beans, barley, sorghum, flaxseed and bamboo shoots.

There's a reason that cyanide exists in all these plants, and it is - to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes - evolutionary, suggests Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, an assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Olsen, who studies white clover, cassava and other plants that produce cyanide, says the plants have an ingenious poison delivery system, one that evolution has designed to discourage herbivores from feasting on them.

Due to proper food processing techniques and strict regulations, cyanide-wielding plants pose little threat to the American food supply. But, in Africa, where cassava root has become a major part of subsistence diets, many poor people suffer from a chronic form of cyanide poisoning known as konzo.

How plants make cyanide

The plant stores the cyanide in an inactive form, typically as a cyanogenic glycoside, which is a sugar molecule with an attached cyanide group (carbon triple-bonded to nitrogen).

The cyanogenic glycoside is stored in one compartment of the plant cell and an enzyme that activates it is stored in another compartment. When an insect or other animal chews the plant and crushes the compartments, the two chemicals mix, and the enzyme cleaves the cyanide from the sugar. It's a bit like breaking a glow stick to mix the chemicals that make the stick fluoresce.

Olsen describes it as "a cyanide booby-trap."

What cyanide does to poison a person (or the relevant herbivore) is equally ingenious. It prevents cells from using oxygen by binding in its place to the biomachinery that converts food to energy. This causes what is essentially a molecular form of asphyxiation.

And the molecular pathway it blocks is so ancient and universal, cyanide is effective against most life forms, from insects to people.

Why so many food plants contain cyanide

Why do so many food plants contain cyanide? There are two answers, Olsen says. Cyanide acts as a primitive pesticide that discourages insects that feed on plants. The very earliest farmers, selecting plants to bring into cultivation, might have found these "clean" plants particularly attractive. By selecting plants that hadn't been chewed up by insects, they may have inadvertently selected ones that were cyanogenic.

But the second and perhaps more important reason is that as plant toxins go, cyanide is a manageable one. The cyanide in apples and peaches, for example, is in their seeds and pits, which usually are discarded.

In addition, Olsen says, even if an edible plant part contains the poison, it is easy to get rid of by crushing the plant then washing the mash. Crushing releases the water-soluble cyanide, which is carried off in the water.

Disabling the genes that code for cyanide production also is straightforward. It took only one genetic mutation, for example, to turn the toxic bitter almond to the benign sweet almond.

"You'll notice that the oak hasn't been domesticated," Olsen says, "and this may be because the poison in that case is not a single compound but rather a broad class of compounds (the tannins) whose production is controlled by many different genes."

"Many mutations would be required to generate a low-tannin oak. Also tannins are not sequestered in one part of the plant, such as the leaves, but instead are found throughout the plant, so it isn't possible just to remove the offending part."

"Squirrels have evolved digestive systems that can handle the oak tannins," Olsen says. "But tannins definitely discourage acorn consumption by people."

The problem with cassava

One plant that can deliver problematic amounts of cyanide is cassava, also called manioc, tapioca or yuca.

Olsen, who has studied the domestication of cassava, says that it is native to South America and was imported to Africa by the Portuguese just 300 or 400 years ago. It remained a minor crop until about 100 years ago, becoming important only when soils became too degraded to grow traditional African crops.

There are sweet as well as bitter strains of cassava, but farmers often prefer the bitter, high-cyanide ones, because they discourage insects (and thieves - who avoid the roots that require laborious processing).

People have the ability to detoxify some cyanide if they ingest it slowly and over a long period of time, and if they have sufficient protein in their diet, particularly sulfur-containing amino acids.

Those who suffer from konzo often are subsisting on little other than cassava and may also not be processing the root properly, since detoxification requires an abundant water supply.

Tacked to Olsen's office wall is a woven palm-fiber basket that looks like a giant Chinese finger trap.

The purpose of this intriguing South American implement, called a tipiti, is to wring the cyanide out of grated cassava. It is also a reminder of the ingeniousness of plants, which are not the patsies animals often think they are, but instead experts in chemical warfare.

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Beware the smell of bitter almonds | The Source | Washington University in St. Louis

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Many food plants contain cyanogenic glycosides that can release cyanide when the food is eaten. What's more, a greater proportion of food plants than plants in general are cyanogenic. WUSTL researcher Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, offers an explanation of this toxic puzzle.

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Please watch this video for the instructions.

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1) As individuals, all of you are to head into the Brainstorming document above where each of you will use ten minutes to individually generate as many mystery ideas as you can on any scientific phenomenon. You may want to do further research during this time as well.

If you prefer, you can agree as a group on the scientific phenomena to generate ideas for.

2) Take turns to share your ideas.

3) As a group, choose the one that you'd like to work on

4) Develop your ideas further and fill in the story template below.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Group Allocation
Group 1: Sze Hui, Ros, Miang
Group 2: Charlene, Kimie, Serena
Group 3: Sok Hwee, Iskandar, Neil

Instructions for all groups
- You will have 1 hour to attempt the tasks
- After the 1 hour, breakout rooms will close for a check-in
- You will have 20min to prepare to present your work to the rest of the group

Presentation pointers
a) walk the rest of the teachers through your task (set context)
b) showcase your product(s)/ideas
c) talk about how it felt to be in the students' shoes
d) describe which group of learners this strategy might benefit
e) talk about what you might change about the task design for your students

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As a group, come up with an original storyline that adapts Nice Piece of China.

You will need to make the following changes:

1) SETTING
- Social context: Modern Singaporean context
- Physical context: HDB flat

2) CHARACTERS
- Change the 3 servants to 2 or 3 family members

3) PLOT
- Change the crime of murder to a theft

Other than the restrictions above, you may make any change you like as long as your storyline qualifies as a mystery.

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Discuss your ideas on adaptation, then use the story planner above to capture your storyline. The document contains an example based on A Nice Piece of China to show you how to use the template, followed by a blank template for you to fill in.

It is up to you to decide if you would like to work by modifying the A Nice Piece of China example or to start planning from the blank template.

FEEL FREE TO EDIT/DELETE SECTIONS OF THE PLANNER IF YOU FEEL IT IS NECESSARY

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Read the following articles about mysteries with known solutions:
- Rivervale theft story
- Cobra murder weapon story

Your task is to adapt the details of the article to turn it into a mystery story. You may as many adaptations as you like.

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As a group, convert the following chronological outline (Page 1) to a narrative order (Page 2) that would form the outline of a mystery story.

You may change or flesh out details on the chronological outline if necessary.

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Open this story planner, read the existing chronological outline and come up with a narrative outline for a mystery story.

FEEL FREE TO EDIT/DELETE SECTIONS OF THE PLANNER IF YOU FEEL IT IS NECESSARY

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When a cobra became a murder weapon in India - BBC News

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Use the story planner above to capture your storyline.

FEEL FREE TO EDIT/DELETE SECTIONS OF THE PLANNER IF YOU FEEL IT IS NECESSARY

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Group 1's edited work

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Group 2's edited work

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Finished Product (For use with students)

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Group 3's edited work

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[07 Feb Mystery Stories PD] Group Presentations and Final Words