Does the human body evolve as quickly as human culture? With a stellar 15-minute video, explore the trait of lactose intolerance. Only about 1/3 of human adults seem to still have the enzyme lactase and therefore, the ability to digest...

Class members use an applet on the Internet to simulate the spread of a disease. The simulation allows individuals to determine two nodes to vaccinate to limit the number of nodes infected. By running several simulations, scholars...

Is the sun the only celestial body with magnetic fields? A guided discussion on the weather in space is designed with a mix of questions, discussions, explanations, and applications. Additionally, the resouce includes an...

Four different-shaped and dyed pasta types represent four different alleles. Following a guide sheet, young geneticists practice randomly selecting alleles and discover the traits of the resulting offspring. This is a fun and solid...

Imagine recycling food scraps and using them to make paper. The directions are all here in a seven-page packet that details several paper-making strategies.

Try a twist on the old finch beak and chopsticks activity by using M&Ms on a Twister mat. Spoons, knives, forks, and chopsticks represent beaks and are randomly assigned to your little birds, who must collect as much food as possible...

Students investigate how selection occurs in a random population. The concept is that selection affects evolution.They demonstrate how selection occurs and will analyze shifts in the populations. They design their conclusions with M...

Students research the population of Bengal tigers and their existence as either dominant or recessive. They explore the presence of fur on these tigers and its lethal combinations. Determinating the effect of random mating in a...

Students randomly select jelly beans that represent genes for several human traits such as tongue-rolling ability and eye color. Then, working in pairs (preferably of mixed gender), students randomly choose new pairs of jelly beans from...

Students, after researching/analyzing the concept of environmental health to air quality, role-play the basic principals of epidemiology. They act out a specific scenario to generate questions, draft a research plan, and generate...

Intrigue the class by completing a lesson on meiosis, filled with challenging and insightful activities to spark the interest of every person in the room. Each member of the class learns about genetic disorders due to faulty meiosis, and...

The main objective of this activity is to illustrate the variation that results from crossing-over during prophase I of meiosis. Other sources of variation from generation to generation are: (1) independent assortment (223 possible...

Students study volcanoes including rock fragments, ash, aerosols and gases.  In this volcano lesson plan students divide into groups and build models of the three major types of volcanoes. 

Students investigate genetics and evolution of species. They simulate the breeding of birds using origami birds. In addition, using dice they introduce genetic variation into the species.

Space science and math collide in this inquiry that investigates launching times for antacid-tablet rockets! Upper elementary or middle school learners collect data as they launch these mini rockets. They apply concepts of place value...

It's alive! Young mad scientists create monsters as they explore the probabilities of genetic traits during a well-structured inquiry lesson. Pairs travel from station to station, rolling the dice and adding traits to their creations as...

This PowerPoint jumps right into the details of unusual traits and how they are coded.  The epistasis patterns in Labradors are used as a main example, and many instances of polygenic inheritance malfunctions are explained. All of...

High schoolers explore forestry. They discuss creating fire breaks to control forest fires. Students create models to determine the best way to manage forest fires. They discuss current techniques of forest management.

Students estimate the population of a butterfly ecosystem and create a chart and graph based on information they find.

Students analyze the causes of cancer from a genetic standpoint. They explain the increase in cancer with age and create a hypothesis for cancer development. They use the laws of probability as well.

Young scholars create questions they want answered while they show what they comprehend about endangered and extinct species. They categorize photos of living things onto a contunum with the main points for use as a formative assessment.

This multiple-choice and short-answer quiz covers chromosomes, genetic disorders, and more. The multiple choice section could work as a pretest, as well.

Students recognize and identify 3 grasses and 9 common forbs of the fermilab prairie and which were common in IL, identify using resources and write 3 critical attributes of each plant.

In this chromosome worksheet, students answer eighteen questions about chromatids, chromosomes, types of reproduction, haploid and diploid cells and zygotes.