This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with students exploring a real case study of a middle-school girl named M’Kenna, who reported some alarming symptoms to her doctor.

Students investigate data specific to M’Kenna’s case in the form of doctor’s notes, endoscopy images and reports, growth charts, and micrographs. They also draw from their results from laboratory experiments on the chemical changes involving the processing of food and from digital interactives to explore how food is transported, transformed, stored, and used across different body systems in all people.

Students figure out that they can trace all food back to plants, including processed and synthetic food. They obtain and communicate information to explain how matter gets from living things that have died back into the system through processes done by decomposers. Students finally explain that the pieces of their food are constantly recycled between living and nonliving parts of a system.

This unit on matter cycling and photosynthesis begins with students reflecting on what they ate for breakfast. Students are prompted to consider where their food comes from and consider which breakfast items might be from plants. Then students taste a common breakfast food, maple syrup, and see that according to the label, it is 100% from a tree.

Based on the preceding unit, students argue that they know what happens to the sugar in syrup when they consume it. It is absorbed into the circulatory system and transported to cells in their body to be used for fuel. Students explore what else is in food and discover that food from plants, like bananas, peanut butter, beans, avocado, and almonds, not only have sugars but proteins and fats as well. This discovery leads them to wonder how plants are getting these food molecules and where a plant’s food comes from.

How does changing an ecosystem affect what lives there? This unit on ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity begins with students reading headlines that claim that the future of orangutans is in peril and that the purchasing of chocolate may be the cause. Students then examine the ingredients in popular chocolate candies and learn that one of these ingredients--palm oil--is grown on farms near the rainforest where orangutans live. This prompts students to develop initial models to explain how buying candy could impact orangutans.

This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.

This classroom activity will show students that there is a lot we don't know about science, for example life throughout the universe. It will hopefully encourage students to question what we know and don't know, and exploration and study of the unknown.

Why are living things different from one another? This unit on genetics starts out with students noticing and wondering about photos of two cattle, one of whom has significantly more muscle than the other. Students figure out how muscles typically develop as a result of environmental factors such as exercise and diet. Then, they work with cattle pedigrees, including data about chromosomes and proteins, to figure out genetic factors that influence the heavily muscled phenotype and explore selective breeding in cattle.

This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.

This video features residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, plus environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and scientist John Holdren, exploring the human impacts of global climate change.

The coral reefs of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu are the backbone of the island's environmental and economic health. Today they face destruction from a silent predator that can rapidly decimate an entire reef. In this video, students learn about how a starfish is destroying the coral reefs of Vanuatu and how the islanders are adapting.

In this video, an entrepreneur is finding new ways to manage the invasive Asian carp problem in the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Once introduced to help mitigate an algae problem, the carp became invasive. This video highlights how the local community has adapted to the issue, including how they have gained ideas about how to utilize the carp from other cultures to help mitigate the issue.

This exercise should be used after you think students know what AFM diagrams are and how they work. This is sort of a quiz -- to see if they can properly interpret the diagrams. There is no point moving on to real projects that involve AFM diagrams if the students don't understand the basics.

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Student groups create working radios by soldering circuit components supplied from AM radio kits. By carrying out this activity in conjunction with its associated lesson concerning circuits and how AM radios work, students are able to identify each circuit component they are soldering, as well as how their placement causes the radio to work. Besides reinforcing lesson concepts, students also learn how to solder, which is an activity that many engineers perform regularly giving students a chance to be able to engage in a real-life engineering activity.

Series of videos that can be used in an AP Biology Labs class created by Paul Anderson- Bozeman Science

Paul Anderson's video play list of videos that can be used in a AP Biology Science Practices course

Series of videos that can be used in a AP Biology Video Essentials class created by Paul Anderson- Bozeman Science

The goal of this lesson is to introduce students who are interested in human biology and biochemistry to the subtleties of energy metabolism (typically not presented in standard biology and biochemistry textbooks) through the lens of ATP as the primary energy currency of the cell. Avoiding the details of the major pathways of energy production (such as glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation), this lesson is focused exclusively on ATP, which is truly the fuel of life. Starting with the discovery and history of ATP, this lesson will walk the students through 8 segments (outlined below) interspersed by 7 in-class challenge questions and activities, to the final step of ATP production by the ATP synthase, an amazing molecular machine. A basic understanding of the components and subcellular organization (e.g. organelles, membranes, etc.) and chemical foundation (e.g. biomolecules, chemical equilibrium, biochemical energetics, etc.) of a eukaryotic cell is a desired prerequisite, but it is not a must. Through interactive in-class activities, this lesson is designed to spark the students’ interest in biochemistry and human biology as a whole, but could serve as an introductory lesson to teaching advanced concepts of metabolism and bioenergetics in high school depending on the local science curriculum. No supplies or materials are needed.

For students interested in studying biomechanical engineering, especially in the field of surgery, this lesson serves as an anatomy and physiology primer of the abdominopelvic cavity. Students are introduced to the abdominopelvic cavity—a region of the body that is the focus of laparoscopic surgery—as well as the benefits and drawbacks of laparoscopic surgery. Understanding the abdominopelvic environment and laparoscopic surgery is critical for biomechanical engineers who design laparoscopic surgical tools.

Abejas, Por Favor! Equipo STEM. El Centro de Extensión y Educación en Ciencias Naturales colabora con la facultad de CSU, los Parques Nacionales y los programas de ciencia ciudadana para traducir su investigación científica actual en experiencias STEM únicas para los estudiantes en forma de kits educativos que se pueden prestar. Cada kit contiene casi todos los materiales necesarios (menos cosas comunes como agua y toallas de papel) para explorar algunos temas de investigación científica realmente interesantes. enviando un formulario de recogida local o un formulario de entrega disponible en el sitio web vinculado. Utilice la información de contacto en la página de descripción general del kit STEM para obtener más información. https://www.cns-eoc.colostate.edu/stem-kits/ Este kit se proporciona de forma gratuita para uso educativo.

In this activity, students work with paleoclimate proxy data (d18O, CH4, CO2)from the Byrd and GISP2 ice cores to investigate millennial-scale climate changes during the Last Glacial/Deglacial time periods. Students must prepare a publication quality plot of the data and answer several questions about the similarities and differences between the time-series (north-south phasing, amplitude, symmetry) and use this information to assess the bipolar see-saw mechanism for abrupt climate changes. Students are encouraged to read two journal articles for more information and to synthesize their results with other information from lectures and earlier readings.

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This is a computer-based activity in which students retrieve data from websites maintained by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Weather Service (NWS), and then use that data to test different hypotheses regarding streamflow and precipitation. Students import data from web sites into a spreadsheet program where they can construct scatter plots and perform simple statistical tests. The activity has two components, the first focusing on relations between streamflow and drainage basin characteristics (drainage area, slope, precipitation), the second focusing on trends in annual precipitation at two locations in the USA: Burlington, VT, and Boulder, CO. As part of the second component, students conduct a statistical test to determine if the long-term trends in precipitation are significant.

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This jigsaw style exercise challenges new geomorphology students to collect topographic data and analyze its accuracy and precision.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)