Engaging lesson ideas for busy biology and health teachers.

A decked-out, homemade ("class made") stress ball! What do stress balls have to do with genetics? Really, absolutely nothing. But we can change this today! Here is a fun way to teach basic genetic inheritance patterns in a biology class. It involves making homemade stress balls and then decorating them as a “baby or kid” with different inherited traits. Now, while this post is about using stress balls in a biology class, you can also make these in a health class. When I used

Mitosis has always been one of my favorite biology topics to teach and create lessons for. I can still hear a mitosis song in my head that I heard over and over for years from a mitosis video I used to show my students. It was a fun video- definitely engaging- it was funny and made the students laugh while at the same time explained the stages of mitosis very well. But even still, it is one thing to talk about cell division in notes, read about it, or see a video on it, and

Have you ever been camping? Maybe you were a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Brownie or Girl Scout as a kid, or maybe your kids were, or are now? If so, you probably have fond memories of sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows to make a delicious treat of s’mores or cooking hotdogs while talking and laughing with others. Many of your students will be able relate to cooking simple food over a campfire, but do they know that they can also cook food using a homemade solar oven? Y

Do this demonstration with younger kids and they will really be wowed at the end result. Older kids will too if they have never done this before. It will make them think that the properties of water are pretty cool, which to us science people, we certainly think so. This lab will explore the process of capillary action. Capillary action is the process by which water rises through a narrow space or material with pores without any help from any outside forces. In plants, this

Paperclips floating on water. How many will you get to float? This experiment will explore the properties of surface tension and cohesion. Surface tension is the property of water that makes water act like a stretchy skin, making it resist an external force. This is why a water strider can walk on water with ease. Water's high surface tension is caused by the cohesion of water molecules. The water molecules pull on each other. Cohesion is when water molecules stick to each o

Water is a pretty cool substance we have here on earth. Let's show our science learners this with some simple, hands-on-learning. Here is an engaging water property exploration activity that you can do with your students that only requires a few things. The water properties students will observe in these activities are cohesion, surface tension, and adhesion. Materials: Penny ·Flat surface ·Pipette ·Water ·Rubbing Alcohol ·Plastic tray ·Paper towels How to Do the Penny Lab:

In this lab students will observe how muscle fatigue affects the amount of work muscles can do. Students will make predictions on how intense exercise affects how much work their muscles can handle without a break. When skeletal muscles contract and relax (shorten and lengthen), they cause bones to move. This is work, and all work the body does requires ATP, which is the energy currency in our bodies. ATP is produced through the process of cellular respiration. Muscles use up

Here is a foldable you can use for any class, as all classes will have new vocabulary students will be expected to learn. I learned how to make this diamond sheet at a professional development meeting on foldables many years ago when I was a new teacher. This easy foldable makes a great graphic organizer for reviewing key concepts or unit vocabulary. It is also good activity to assign to ESL students learning a new topic. I like it best for topics that have four vocabulary te

When learning about probabilities in middle school genetics lessons, you will find that many students still struggle with basic math skills, especially if you teach an on level or resource class. This is one reason you may want to add a lesson that reinforces math concepts such as percents, tally marking, decimals, fractions, ration, and probabilities. These are all basic math skills that students should have learned by the time they are solving Punnett Square word problems,

Picking up Paperclips Station Alcohol is one of the most abused and used drugs among our youth in the United States. Sadly, many young people have lost their lives, accidently killed someone, or have become seriously injured as a result of being intoxicated. Drinking and driving is a major public safety issue that results in many deaths each year in the U.S. Another serious alcohol-related problem is binge drinking. Binge drinking is when a large amount of alcohol is consume

Okay, it is back-to-school time and new faces are looking back at you, and a bunch of new personalities are in your classes. You might be wondering if there is anything new you can do with your classes that will help ease them into your class to help them get to know their classmates and help you get to know them. The first week of school is a big "get to know your students" time. Here are five things you can do with your classes to break the ice with them and get to know

Get crafty with this clay neuron model. It's the perfect addition to your nervous system unit. The neuron is the coolest looking of all the cells. Most students enjoy making things with clay. It is kind of therapeutic and relaxing for students to feel the clay's soft texture and to mold it into different things. Students who are kinesthetic and visual learners will be especially drawn to this method of learning. Most students like when art is incorporated into their core con

This pencil eye trick is one cool thing trick to try with your classes. It is a nice "hook" to use when introducing the human eye unit to your students. It is a simple thing to do that will take a few minutes. To do this trick, each student will need two sharpened pencils. How to do the eye trick: 1.Close the right eye and keep it closed. 2.Grab two sharpened pencils and hold one in each hand with the pointy end facing each other. 3.Hold the pencils far apart from each other,

I love incorporating games into a classroom! Let's face it, students crave a break from the regular schoolwork routine every now and then, and yes, so teachers too. Adding games to the classroom reduces boredom while at the same time strengthens social skills through peer interaction. They also help to increase students’ motivation by getting them actively involved in the learning process. Adding games to your class is a fun way to review relevant academic content whether you

Here is a simple lab that students can do that will allow them to explore the stomata in plants. Are you ready? If so, grab some spinach leaves and head over with me! :) Spinach leaves are wonderful for cooking and making salads with, but did you know they can also be used for viewing plant stomata under a microscope? Spinach leaves are thin, with a flexible top layer, making them easy to work with. Of course, any flat leaf and wide leaf will work, just make sure it lacks a f

Students will analyze data and identify patterns in how traits in a population can change over time in this activity. In nature, individuals of the same species are not alike. They will differ in some way genetically. We call these differences in appearance and behavior, genetic variations. The traits you see expressed in an organism is called the phenotype. In this activity, the phenotype being looked at closely is the color of the "candy critter". Some genetic traits help

Here is a clay activity you can do with your students when studying the circulatory system-making clay red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. These are super simple to make and a wonderful way for students to visualize these three parts of the blood. You can make these yourself to use as a model to show students when teaching on this topic, or you can have students make these in class as they learn about the human blood's composition. Blood has a lot going on insi

I brought you the clay blood vessels and heart model idea to bring into your classes (my personal favorites!). Then the neuron clay model, integumentary model, and now I want to share this lung clay model with you. I will say it again and again, most students will enjoy doing these clay lessons, as it gives them some freedom of art expression and it is kind of stress-relieving to roll and shape air dry clay in their hands. It’s a great addition to any class, but especially f

As the school year comes closer to ending (or a semester), many teachers are barely able to walk to their cars to go to work in the mornings, wishing so badly that summer break would just come already. Most students feel this same way about the last few weeks of school, so it is a good idea to take a week and have them do some laid back projects in class at the end of the year. Here are 22 project ideas for your biology classes to recap some things they have learned either

Okay, for all the art loving students and teachers out there, here is my latest human body system clay model. This one is on the integumentary system. Like the other clay models I posted about previously, you will find this one is also relatively easy to do. I know I say this a lot, but it is true and I have seen it as a teacher-most students will enjoy learning science more when you include fun lessons like this. They are also more likely to retain the information when they