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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Descending to the Challenge: Developing Documentaries About the Deep Ocean

For Teachers 7th - 12th
The video clip that comprises the warm up is not available, but the related article from The New York Times and the movie trailer for Aliens of the Deep are, leaving enough material to make this a fascinating lesson on deep-sea...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

'Hunger Games' Science: Investigating Genetically Engineered Organisms

For Teachers 7th - 12th
In The Hunger Games novel and movie, a futuristic, dystopian society is the setting. In it, a genetically engineered bird escapes control of the government. Using this as a starting point, teenagers examine the realistic possibility of...
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Lesson Plan
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Survival of the Fittest - Variations in the Clam Species Clamys sweetus

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
It's not often that you come across a clever laboratory activity that is both imaginative and comprehensive! Using M&M's and Reese's peanut butter candies to represent two different clam species, young biologists test for "relative...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Reebops a Model "Organism" for Teaching Genetics Concepts

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Reebops are cute, marshmallow-based creatures that can be used to teach inheritance. Beginning biologists draw strips of paper that represent chromosomes from two envelopes, one for the father, and one for the mother. Each parent...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Where Has It Been? Tracking the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

For Teachers 5th - 8th
By studying the assumed extinction, and subsequent rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, learners use maps and come up with a scenario for the rediscovery of the bird. This incredibly thorough lesson plan is chock-full of...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Baby Elephant Orphans Get New Home, Families

For Teachers 2nd - 6th
Students react to a series of statements about elephants, then read a news article about how workers at an elephant orphanage are working to return the animals to the wild. In the animal studies and current events lesson, the teacher...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Colossal Squid Caught in Antarctic

For Teachers 2nd - 6th
Young scholars define the word colossal, then read a news article about an enormous squid caught off Antarctica. In this animal studies and current events lesson, the teacher introduces the article with dictionary and vocabulary...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Northwest Coast Indians: Spring and Summer Salmon

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Here is a fabulous lesson about the cultures of the Northwest Indians. Through an exploration of a story about the Salmon People, learners study the practice of harvesting salmon and the cultural importance of salmon to the Northwest...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Cell Wall Recipe: A Lesson on Biofuels

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Biotech engineers discover that changes in the DNA code for cell wall formation can help create crops better suited for biofuel production. They extract DNA from wheat germ. They decode paper strips with codes and relate the activity to...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Four Groups of Biologically Important Compounds

For Teachers 7th - 12th
This is not they typical set of teacher instructions. It is an organized chart of the important organic compounds. For each, the involved elements, the name of the building block monomers, the names of polymers, extra information, and a...
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Lesson Planet Article
Curated OER

Photosynthesis Lesson Plans

For Teachers 4th - 7th
You can teach students about the importance of plants and the process of photosynthesis with motivating lesson plans. Follow along and find out how one science teacher uses experiments, stories, and her love of plants to get kids excited...
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Lesson Planet Article
Curated OER

Food Chains: Integrating Science and Reading

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Using a high interest science topic, like the food chain, can get students excited about reading, math, and more! A multitue of wonderful ideas that have cross-curricular connections. 
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Incomplete Dominant and Codominant Traits Worksheet

For Students 7th - 10th
A two-page instructional activity provides seven Punnett squares for practice in determining genotypes and phenotypes. Each is an example of incomplete dominance or codominance. After your bright biologists have mastered Punnett squares,...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Taking Count of Biodiversity

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Here is a well-designed activity on biodiversity that should intrigue your charges. In it, pupils compare a natural desert area to a school field to see how habitat destruction affects species diversity. Groups set up transects and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Where'd You Get Those Genes?

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Really a unit, this resource exposes middle schoolers to genetics at their level. They read interviews and biographies, trace a family tree, play games that simulate inheritance concepts, and more! Teacher's procedures, student...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Who Took Jerell's iPod? ~ An Organic Compound Mystery

For Students 7th - 12th
Within the setting of a crime scene investigation, biochemistry beginners analyze organic compounds as a means of determining "Who dunnit." They use a brown paper test for lipids, glucose test strips and iodine to identify carbohydrates,...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Investigating Osmosis

For Students 7th - Higher Ed
A thorough investigation of cell transport is provided when completing the assignment. The first half requires biology class members to answer questions about diffusion and osmosis with the aid of diagrams. Then they fashion an...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Alcoholic Fermentation in Yeast

For Students 7th - Higher Ed
Biology classes will bubble with excitement as they complete this assignment. Beginning with an informative overview of cellular respiration and fermentation processes, the highlight comes as an experiment in determining the rate of...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Diffusion across a Selectively Permeable Membrane

For Students 7th - Higher Ed
Lab groups fill a section of dialysis tubing with glucose and starch solutions and suspend it in a water bath. They use iodine as a starch indicator and a glucose test strip to find out if either of the materials crossed the selectively...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Dragon Genetics - Understanding Inheritance

For Students 7th - 12th
Six pages begin with a detailed introduction to meiosis and homologous chromosome pairs. Instructions guide learners through a simulation in which they draw craft sticks marked with autosomes in order to decode the genes inherited by...
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Activity
University of Pennsylvania

Evolution by Natural Selection

For Teachers 6th - 9th
A diagram, data table, and reading passage top this resource. Through it, biology beginners are introduced to the concept of natural selection. They answer some questions and then participate in a simulation using fabric as a habitat and...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Pig Products

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
How do you feel about cloning? This issue is highly debated, so educate your class before they participate in a similar debate! Read a New York Times article related to the use of cloned pig organs for human transplants. Groups develop...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Absorption of Solar Energy

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Two sequential parts to this lesson introduce your class to the electromagnetic spectrum, the ability to absorb radiant energy, and the pigments in leaves that are responsible for collecting sunlight to be used in the photosynthetic...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ego Trip- Exploring the Inner Workings of the Human Body

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Young scholars gain an understanding of how systems and organs in the human body work. They create their own fictional account of a trip through the human body, and describe one response the body makes to stimuli.