TeachersFirst Biology Lessons

Access Excellence Lessons & Unit Plans - Grades 6-12 - TeachersFirst has indexed more than 250 lesson plans for biology and related topics that are part of Genentech's Access Excellence collection. Grouped by topic, they are an outstanding resource.

Activities-to-Go from Genentech's outstanding Access Excellence site. These activities include dozens of experiments and lessons for, middle school, high school, and AP biology students. All have been submitted by teachers, and each comes with extensive notes. See the samples below.

Butterfly lesson ideas - Grades 4-8 - Here's a whole collection of submissions from other teachers describing science projects involving butterflies. Since migration is part of the butterfly life cycle, there are lots of opportunities here for comparing butterfly counts and data with schools in other parts of the country. In any case, it's a good resource for lesson ideas. This page is part of a larger butterfly site with other resources.

The Gaia Hypothesis: an approach to problem solving in the environment by Stephen Beasley-Murray, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute - Biology and Ecology, Grades 9-11 - Teach biology through this hypothesis which focuses either reductively on cell biology, biochemistry and genetics or holistically on an understanding of species in terms of its ecosystem or environment.

A Hands-on Approach to Environmental Quality by Richard R. MacMahon, Ph.D., Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute - Environmental Science, Biology, and General Science, Grades 7-12 - By planting, tending, and harvesting an organic garden, students learn about environmental quality and their roles in the problem.

Learning Evolution - Grades 6-12 - The companion site to the PBS Evolution series contains several lessons on the topic, including an investigation of why evolution remains so controversial in some places. These include links to third-party resources, including a number of sites showing how organisms developed over geologic time. There are also several nice shockwave animations.

Secrets of the Ocean - Grades 6-12 - This set of lesson units, designed by Scripps Institute, offers more than a dozen topics dealing with ocean environments and inhabitants. Many of these lessons include hands-on activities that can require only minimal equipment. The units also include extension activities to make the content suitable for secondary or upper elementary students.

Teaching Evolution - Teachers - The PBS Evolution series includes a complete on-line tutorial for classroom teachers. Topics include the specifics of evolution and its scientific background, as well as strategies for managing the controversies that sometimes arise when teaching this topic. This material is interestng for both its content and its approach. These lessons rely on a combination of video excerpts and links to credible third-party resources.

Parts Wanted - Grades 7-10 - This middle school lesson lets students show their understanding of the roles of various cell organelles by creating "want ads" for the various cell functions and presenting their ads to the class. The lesson can be modified for use in high school settings as well.

Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination - Smithsonian in Your Classroom - Science/Art: Grades 4-8 - This series of three lessons first teaches the science lessons about pollination, then culminates with an art activity to draw it all together.

You Can Change the World by Francine C. Coss, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute - Elementary Science and Computer, Grades K-5 - Teach students about the positive and negative effects each of us has on our environment.

Zoo Creation Webquest - Grades: 7-9 - Subject: Science - As "curators" of a new zoo, students work in teams to research climate, world locations, plants and animals of six different biomes in this webquest. Each team member will research one particular aspect of the team's assigned biome, then the entire team will compile its information with the other teams to create a zoo layout complete with "informational plaques" summarizing each biome's characteristics.