Supporting students natural curiosity about the world will enable their interests to comes alive. The following lesson plans have been gathered by local scientists to help develop student's inquiry skills as they discover the life systems within their environment.
These learning activities were submitted by Dr. Martin Kelly, Division of Math/Science, Genesee Community College.
Both are intended to illustrate and simulate the stages of mitosis or meiosis using a few playing cards and chalk to draw the associated cellular structures. These activities could be used in any introductory Biology course (MS, HS, and College) where mitosis and meiosis are taught.
Biodiversity
The following lesson on biological diversity was submitted by Hilary Richardson, Adjunct Environmental Science and Biology, SUNY Brockport.
Biological Diversity: The great Variety of Life
Critter Races
This lesson, prepared by Sheila Brady Root and Louis Friedman, explores and measures the movement of "critters". In the activity, the teacher and students work together to measure how far Critter A, B, and C, can travel in a minute. Ideally, the activity is aimed for use in the intermediate classroom. This lesson provides a meaningful bridge between studying the living environment in science, and metric measurement in mathematics.
Explore the Activity for yourself, and let the races begin!
Rohm and Haas Project Labs features many excellent natural, biological and environmental experiments and lesson plans. These are developed by teachers involved in their summer workshops and are professionally tested and reviewd before publication.