Labs and Activities for a Year of Biology

-In this bundle you will get lab/activity resources and 2 bonus files:

- Scientific Method: How can you keep apples from turning brown? Students investigate how apples oxidize and what can be done to prevent it. Answer key and guidance included.

- Scientific Method: Which water temperature dissolves skittles the quickest? Students investigate temperatures that influence dissolving rate. Guidance and answer key included.

- Osmosis Lab: 3 day osmosis lab using water beads. Students investigate osmosis using water beads over a 3 day period to understand tonicity. Answer key and guidance included.

- Surface Tension Lab: Why can a penny hold so many drops of water? Use a penny to demonstrate surface tension. Follow up questions and answer key included.

- Pineapple Enzyme Lab: How do the enzymes in pineapple affect gelatin? Use pineapple to investigate how enzymes break down proteins. Guidance and answer key included.

- Bioblitz: an outdoor ecology survey activity. Guidance included.

- Evolution Project: Students create the narration for a video depicting allopatric
speciation. Student instructions, planning sheet, teacher instructions, video file, and rubric included.

- Climate Change and Evolution Project: Students create a newscast to explain how climate change will impact evolution of future populations/species. Rubric included.

- Lipids Webquest- Student use the internet to investigate unsaturated, saturated, and trans fats. Students draw their shapes an discuss bonds. Students research fad diets and explore the importance of a healthy balanced diet. Website suggestions, video suggestions, and answer key included.

- Properties of Water Lab: Students complete several tasks using water to explain the surface tension of water and investigate polar and non polar substances. Can be done as stations. Answer key/ guidance included.

- Chi Square Activity: Students play rock-paper-scissors to collect and analyze data. Answer key/guidance included.

- Genetic Drift Activity: Students use a die to model genetic drift through a population. Answer key/guidance included.

- DNA Extraction Lab: Students extract DNA from strawberries, bananas, and kiwi to explore DNA in livings things. (Also posted as my FREE download)

- Genetics Vocabulary practice: Students complete a vocabulary exercise to help them distinguish between terms that sound similar (such as chromosome and chromatin) and make connections between terms that sound different but closely related (such as genotype and phenotype). Answer key included.

- Identifying Scientific Variables using Clips from Mythbusters: Student complete this low stakes review of scientific variable identification. Students follow along with a guided video and worksheet that asks them to watch Mythbusters' experiments and identify parts of their scientific setup and experimental design. Answer key included.

-Vaccines and Bioethics, Article and Podcast with Question Guide: Students read an article about vaccine ethics and the steps to create/test a new vaccine. The author of the article is interviewed on a podcast. Students listen and answer questions on a graphic organizer. Answer key included

- Stem Cell WebQuest: Students use the internet to explore stem cells. Great as an introduction to stem cells. Guidance and answer key included.

- Cell Size Activity: Students use a video to complete a cell size lab focusing on surface area to volume ratios. NO PREP

- Lung Diseases Research Activity: Each student should use the internet to complete all the questions on the lung diseases worksheet. Students usually need about 30-45 minutes to thoroughly complete the assignment. Students will use the internet to find reliable sources to answer the questions provided on the lung disease worksheet.

-Observation and Inference: 12 slide editable PowerPoint that covers observation, inference, qualitative, and quantitative meanings. The presentation includes practice using pictures. Lab activity that can be modified or edited as needed. In this lab activity students use their observation and inference skills while they collect qualitative and quantitative data. Microsoft Word and PDF files attached.

-Outside Observations: This outdoor observation activity will get your students out of the classroom and observing nature while they scientifically observe natural objects of their choosing. Students will use those observations to create inferences, do research of their own and ultimately produce a comic strip, poster, or TikTok style video to educate their classmates about their chosen objects. This outdoor observation acitivityy will get your students out of the classroom and observing nature while they scientifically observe natural objects of their choosing. Students will use those observations to create inferences, do research of their own and ultimately produce a comic strip, poster, or TikTok style video to educate their classmates about their chosen objects.

- Video Worksheets for Stated Clearly (on youtube) 1) What is evolution? 2) What is natural Selection? 3) What is the evidence for evolution? (answer keys included)

- 2 pH scale activities: Virtual pH Meter Reading/Adjustment & pH Testing. No Prep: Two part virtual pH activity! You can do these activities back to back in one class or you could split them up during different lessons!

• Part one: students use a virtual activity to learn how pH paper and pH meters are used a calibrated. This is perfect to show the differences between the two instruments and why pH meters are much more accurate than pH paper. Many schools do not have digital pH meters so this is the perfect way to introduce students to this piece of lab equipment.
• Part Two: Student use what they learned in part one to act like food scientists who need to make sure the salsa they are creating will be safe for shelf storage and human consumption. This activity shows the calibrated pH meter in action and allows students to draw conclusions from the data they collect in the activity.

- Dissection Alternative or Prep for Dissection: Dissect a Banana or Candy Bar: Two lab options! Use a candy bar OR a banana to practice dissection or use this lab with students who are looking to participate in dissection using an alternative specimen. Practice dissection terminology and procedures using this fun, low-cost lab that all your students will feel comfortable completing! Use any candy bar with multiple layers (such as Milky Way or Twix) or a banana to complete this lab with standard dissection tools. This lab guides students through a dissection of each layer. It will build their confidence and proficiency for future dissections and works great for any student who is squeamish or apprehensive about traditional dissections.

- DNA Extraction Virtual Lab: Follows Learn Genetics Utah Website: Use this lab worksheet with the Learn Genetics Utah virtual DNA extraction simulation. This online lab has been updated to not use FLASH!

- Women in Stem Bulletin Board: No prep print and hang bulletin board! Or hang as individual posters around your classroom/school! Celebrate Women in STEM or Women's History Month with this easy no prep bulletin board idea. Simply print (30 available) posters from the provided file and hang! With 30 available images, you could use this as a rotating bulletin board all year long!

Included:

• 30 8 x 10 COLOR posters each with a unique image and description to highlight the achievements of each woman in stem
• Letters to spell out "Women in Stem"
• Powerpoint version
• PDF version

- Women in Stem Research posters: Get your Students involved on this no prep bulletin board! Students research accomplishments and careers of up to 30 different women in STEM careers (past and present). Hang as individual posters around your classroom/school! Students fill in the sections on each poster- each accompanied by a clip art image of the woman. Bulletin board letters available with the download! Letters spell out WOMEN IN STEM.
Celebrate Women in STEM or Women's History Month with this easy no prep bulletin board idea or class research project. Simply print (30 available) posters from the provided file, have students fill them out, and hang! With 30 available images, you could use this as a rotating bulletin board all year long!
Included:

• 30 8 x 10 COLOR fill in posters, each with a unique image and description to highlight the achievements of each woman in stem
• Letters to spell out "Women in Stem"
• PDF file

Science Wordles: 50 Science Wordles!

This resources includes 50 links and 50 QR codes to digital science themed Wordles. All words are 5 to 6 letters in length and can be found in a basic science or biology textbook.

Monster Match! Practice Prezygotic and Postzygotic Reproductive Barriers:

Monster Match helps monsters find love! Each of the monsters on the "website" has expressed how important it is for them to have little monster babies! Read through the information on the Monster Dating Profile. Decide if the monsters paired together by Monster Match could mate and if they did, will they have monster babies? Use your data sheet to record the information and determine if the two monsters are a true match! Use proper Pre and Post Zygotic barrier/isolation terminology

Biology Midterm Study Guide: Use this biology midterm study guide to review for semester exams! In this 17 page review, students will be asked a variety of questions: multiple choice, fill in the blank and free answer. See below for the topics covered in this midterm review. Answer key is included! This resource is editable so you can add or delete something if you need to based on your personal midterm.

Organelles Review Activity: Find Someone Who...

Students review organelles by moving around the classroom to find someone who can define each of the organelles on their paper. Get your students moving and active during this fun organelle review. Student handouts have lists of organelles and spaces to define their functions. Each student needs to find someone else to define the function of every organelle on their paper.

All About Me: Water Bottle Stickers

Use this activity to get to know your students! Provide one of the three prompts (see preview for each one) and tell them to draw "stickers" on their water bottle that best represents them. Students might use quotes, draw their favorite things, or express some humor. You can ask students to write out explanations for each sticker, or you can have them verbally present to the class.

Atoms: Protons, Neutrons, Electrons Practice

In this recourse students will use the periodic table to complete a table with missing information. Students are tasked with filling in missing data according to a specific element. Students may be asked for the atomic number, atomic mass, protons, neutrons, or electrons. Use this as practice after covering the periodic table or introducing atoms.

Bacteria Graphing- antibiotic resistance

In this activity students read about how bacteria multiply through binary fission, and complete a data set to show how many bacteria will be present after 24 hours. Then, students read about antibiotic resistance and graph data based on a person who was taking their antibiotics, then stopped.

Course Description and Expectations Editable & Technology Agreement with Student Reference Sheet

Instead of reading your expectations to your students, provide them your document and the student reference sheet. Have students go through your course description/expectations and fill out the paper. Have them tell YOU what is expected in class.

Candy Chi Square Activity:

Use this activity to practice Chi Square! Students can use M&M's or Skittles (or other candy if you choose to edit the document) to practice the Chi Square formula, reading a critical value table, writing a null hypothesis, and ultimately determining if the data published by the company should be accepted or rejected. (Data is presented as "fact" to the students, but it is not an accurate representation of the candy company and is for education use only.) Students complete TWO Chi Squares, one for their individual data and one for large group data.

Practice cellular respiration with task cards!

These task cards have 1-4 questions on each card. There are a total of 20 cards- but there are 38 questions total to answer. Students need to practice cellular respiration processes to understand each step. These task cards are great to use after you have taken notes and practiced the information. I like to give notes and watch the Amoeba Sisters Cellular Respiration video first.

Characteristics of Life Amoeba Sisters Video Worksheet

Use this video response sheet while watching the Amoeba Sisters' Video: Characteristics of Life on YouTube. Students fill out the provided video response sheet during or after watching the video. If students fill out the sheet during the video, you may need to pause to provide students time to write. Link provided as URL and QR code.

Characteristics of Living Things Practice

This one page practice covers the characteristics of living things. The first half of the page reviews each characteristic and the second half of the page asks students to identify if the described item/organism is living or not. Use this paper to set up a discussion for students to justify their answers and reference the characteristics that distinguish living things from non lining things.

Back to School Get To Know You Activity!

Get to know your students with this activity! Students create a social media profile similar to Instagram personal page on "Instagram" using the prompts provided. Students will draw/write/use clip art to fill out their personal page. There are 12 boxes for students to fill in. Each box has a provided prompt in the activity. If you want students to create their own prompts, a blank version is provided. See the preview to check out this activity!

Graphing and Data Analysis Practice

These scientific scenarios are the perfect way to practice graphing throughout the year. I know my students tend to forget their graphing principles when they don't use them often. These 10 different practice sets allow me to quickly integrate a graphing and analysis question into our week. You can easily leave one or more of these as a sub plan.

Heredity Simulation

Use this heredity simulation to model genetics that come from mom and dad using fun jack-o-lanterns as an example. In this activity students create allele cards for the male pumpkin and female pumpkin. What will happen when the pumpkins create offspring? What kind of jack-o-lantern face will they have? Students will randomly choose allele cards to model the alleles given to each offspring pumpkin. This activity is a great exercise to model outcomes from two parents. Here, students get to model the alleles getting randomly selected for each offspring. It really drives home the idea that Punnett square probabilities are not always going to be preset in small families. It is a fun way to incorporate some activity into an otherwise paper-based unit.

Human Evolution Reading Questions

This human evolution reading provides an understandable account of the major fossils and past organisms linked to human evolution over time. The article is peer reviewed, but one of the reviewers was a student, so it it student friendly! The article is attached to the assignment.

Inside the Cell Membrane: Amoeba Sister's Video Response Sheet

Use this video response sheet with the Amoeba Sisters Video on YouTube called Inside the Cell Membrane.Watch the video and let your students fill out the video response sheet to review!

Nature of Science: 15 Multiple Choice Bell Work Questions

Use these questions to introduce or review Nature of Science at the beginning or throughout the school year. Each question is multiple choice and written in the style of a standardized test question.

Photosynthesis Video Response Worksheet to use with the Amoeba Sisters Video on YouTube.

This resource goes with the *updated* Amoeba Sisters Photosynthesis video (not the old video). A link and QR code is provided to the correct video so there is no confusion between you and your students.

Precautionary Principle Handout- 1 page

Prezygotic and Postzygotic Notes Handout

Use this handout with your students to help them keep track of prezygotic and postzygotic barriers between species. Provide this resource to students for easy reference.

Protein Synthesis: Practice Transcription and Translation with Beads

Hands on protein synthesis activity! Use this activity to practice transcription and translation.

Theory Vs. Scientific Theory

Use this resource to tackle the misunderstanding between a casual/common theory and a scientific theory. Students will read through the explanation and answer scenario based questions to determine if the scenario is describing a casual theory or a scientific theory.

Types of Selection Handout

This handout covers stabilizing, directional, and disruptive selection while coving types of selection in the evolution unit!

Bonus files: (FREE when you buy the bundle)

- Templates to Organize Bell Work, Exit Slips, Help, Parent Contact: EDITABLE

- Human Evolution: Reading and Student Questions- With Key