TED-Ed
What Happens When Your DNA Is Damaged?
Did you know that your DNA can be damaged tens of thousands of times per day? Learn about the ways that damage to just one strand of your DNA can be fixed, or in extreme examples, result in genetic mutation such as cancer.
TED-Ed
How Mendel's Pea Plants Helped Us Understand Genetics
A brief animation introduces heredity to your beginning biologists. They will meet Gregor Mendel's green and yellow peas, dominant and recessive traits, homozygous and heterozygous alleles, and Punnett squares. In this cartoon animation,...
Curated OER
What is DNA?
What exactly is DNA? How is it formed? What is its purpose? Mr. Anderson explains the basics of DNA using visual information, clear lecture style descriptions, and his own unique flare. Tip: After lecture send home this video to provide...
Curated OER
Mendelian Genetics and Inheritance
Introduce your biologists to Gregor Mendel, the man responsible for Mendelian genetics. The resource explains the experiment that made him famous and sparked interest in genetics everywhere. Also take a closer look at Huntington's...
Curated OER
Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Part 7 of 13
The seventh entry in this 13-part series attempts to show the path the second migration wave took out of Africa. Young geneticists will learn how environmental stressors pushed a second wave of people into the Middle East, China, and...
Curated OER
Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Part 12 of 13
Part 12 starts with the Navajo story of creation and the journey of the ancient ancestors. Spencer argues the facts of this story with his genetic evidence. This episode recaps the journey thus far and attempts to describe the difference...
Curated OER
Genetics 101 Part 2: What are SNPs?
If humans share over 99% of the same chromosomes, how are we different? There are 10 million SNPs in the human genome, accounting for most of our genetic differences. Watch this short clip to introduce your learners to SNPs, or single...
Curated OER
Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Part 5 of 13
Part five of the 13-part series begins with a refutable argument stating that genetically, the ancient people of Australia were populated by the first African ancestors. Spencer Wells travels to India to find the link that bridges...
TED-Ed
How to Sequence the Human Genome
Every human is unique, from our thoughts and actions to our DNA. Scientists spent billions of dollars and over a decade to map the human genome, the sequence of DNA within one human being. Since the project was completed ten years ago,...
PBS
What Is Race?
Geneticist David Altshuler discusses the results of his 1000 Genome Project and his research that shows that people across the world share 90% of the same DNA, that race, as it is thought of today, is a 19th century social historical...
TED-Ed
How Corn Conquered the World
Corn is amazing! A short video traces the development of the most-grown plant on the globe, from its beginnings in Mesoamerica to its many uses beyond as a food stable.
Be Smart
Why Are so Many People Allergic to Food?
Why do some people have allergies, and why are they on the rise? Scientists are working on the answer. An informative video lesson describes body processes when having an allergic reaction as well as therapies and treatments. The...
Smithsonian Institution
Natural Selection: Common Misconceptions
Overcoming pupil misconceptions is much harder than teaching a new topic. Anticipate misconceptions to avoid having to reteach and relearn by showing a lesson resource from the Good Thinking PD series that highlights common mistakes. A...
PBS
The Ghostly Origins of the Big Cats
A lack of fossil records forces scientists to piece together the evolution of the big cats. The PBS Eons video lesson describes the processes scientists use to infer evolutionary details and predict possible species. Scholars get an...
Bite Sci-zed
Mitochondrial DNA
Do young scientists know that some traits are only passed down by the mother? Mitochondrial DNA is an interesting phenomenon that provides researchers with a lot of useful information. Scholars learn about the endosymbiotic theory, what...
PBS
When We Tamed Fire
Was the first use of fire intentional or accidental? Although the answer to the question may never be known, we do know that the discovery of fire was a turning point in humans' evolution. Explore the history of fire use and its...
PBS
When We First Made Tools
The origin of technology began when early hominins began using tools so they could eat more easily. A video lesson presents the fossil evidence of tool usage of the ancestors of humans. Although tools began very simple, their evolution...
PBS
When Giant Scorpions Swarmed the Seas
Bigger and faster is not always better! Explore the characteristics of the ancestors of the current scorpions with an intriguing video. Scholars learn the connections of these changes to the environment of the different time periods.
Crash Course
The Century of the Gene: Crash Course History of Science #42
The human genome project maps the DNA sequence of the entire human genome—not a small task! A video discusses the steps that led to the success of the human genome project. The narrator begins early in the century to communicate events...
Crash Course
Ecology: Crash Course History of Science #38
Relive the birth of ecology and its different branches. The narrator of the 37th video lesson in a History of Sciences series explains the systems nature of ecology. He then explores the major advances of ecology from a historical...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
X Inactivation
Have you ever wondered why calico cats have such a colorful coat? The process of X inactivation is an interesting phenomenon in females that drives the physical appearance of individuals. Viewers of an intriguing video connect knowledge...
Be Smart
Why Do Disney Princesses All Look like Babies?
Could Disney be tricking people into caring about their characters? It seems the design of characters in recent years triggers our nurturing instincts. A video explains the science behind these instinctual habits—and why viewers are...
Be Smart
Is Height All in Our Genes?
Humans on average are shorter than they were centuries ago. Young scholars analyze the factors that affect the height of individuals including historical trends in a video lesson. The presentation analyzes both genetic and...
Crash Course
Genetics and the Modern Synthesis: Crash Course History of Science #35
Can competing biological theories both be correct? Explore the two theories many scientists believed were opposing in a Crash Course History of Science video. The narrator covers both Darwin's and Mendel's genetics theories, the...