Classroom Resources

This video follows germplasm bank coordinator Cristian Zavala Espinosa and geneticist Sarah Hearne, who are part of the global effort to preserve the genetic diversity of maize (corn).

This video follows biologist Elinor Karlsson, who studies dogs to find genes associated with traits, including certain diseases.

This interactive video explores how two scientists tracked the 2013 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. 

This video focuses on the front lines of the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and explains how scientists monitored the evolution of the virus by analyzing its genome.

This hands-on activity allows students to analyze DNA sequences of Ebola viruses. Students use these sequences to track the virus’s spread during the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

In this activity, students extend the concepts covered in the short film The Biology of Skin Color through the application of models and mathematical thinking to explain how genomic variation and human ancestry can explain differences in skin color, a polygenic trait.

In this activity, students explore single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with different traits in dogs to identify genes associated with those traits.

In this activity, students explore the phenomenon of convergent evolution presented in the short film The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree. They build and interpret phylogenetic trees to infer how certain adaptations evolved among the Anole lizard populations of the Caribbean.

This activity engages students in analyzing authentic scientific data that explore the effects of different diets on the evolution of an enzyme that breaks down starch.

In this activity, students explore concepts covered in the short film Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture about the genetic variations associated with lactose tolerance/intolerance and how the trait is inherited in families.

This interactive module shows how DNA sequences can be used to infer evolutionary relationships among organisms and represent them as phylogenetic trees.

In this activity, students use DNA sequences from marine mollusks to construct phylogenetic trees.