In this phenomenon-driven activity, students investigate how cells are signaled to make melanin and explain how mutations in melanin pathway proteins affect the coat color of various organisms.
Getting students engaged in learning about the cell cycle can be difficult. In this Educator Voices article, educator Kathy Van Hoeck describes how she uses cancer as an anchoring phenomenon to spark student interest.
In this activity, wildfires and how much area they burn serve as a phenomenon to guide student inquiry, which includes evaluating data and developing scientific claims.
In this Educator Voices article, professor John Moore describes a "backwards" approach to teaching energy use in cells that traces the process from ATP in use back through glycolysis.
In this inquiry-based activity, students engage in science practices to figure out why some people with a genetic condition that usually leads to sickle cell disease do not have disease symptoms.
This activity explores images of a coral bleaching event, which serve as phenomena for learning about marine ecosystems, human impacts, and climate change.
Planarians can be used to investigate a variety of biological phenomena like animal behavior, mitosis, taxonomy, and more. In this article from professor Karen Avery, see how she uses this unassuming model organism to teach concepts in cellular biology and genetics.
In this article, see a learning sequence where students explore symbiotic relationships and cell communication in bacteria (quorum sensing) by connecting their prior knowledge regarding ocean ecosystems to their understanding of symbiotic relationships.