This interactive L-system simulation produces visualizations of tree forms based on data from specimens in the field or laboratory.

This is a series of stories about what scientists do at the Agricultural Research Service. It is geared to kids 8 to 13 years old.

There are many reasons to seek alternatives to the use of vertebrates, including cost and concerns with use of vertebrates in undergraduate laboratories. This major workshop explores examples of alternatives, including: a) an exploration of thermoregulation without using animals at all, b) an investigation of actomyosin function and membrane excitation using giant alga, and c) using insects to investigate taste receptors and digestion. This workshop explores the importance of providing good background information to vertebrate processes and connecting the alternative experimental system to homologous physiological processes in vertebrates. Students can appreciate the commonality in biological processes and the importance of underlying physiological principles.

This site offers an ask a scientist service, a question of the week, and resources developed and identified by teachers.

This BioBulletin Web site takes an in-depth look at the Asian longhorn beetle. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists.

This resource contains detailed protocols and instructional information used to conduct an undergraduate laboratory exercise in introductory botany and plant structure. It includes student outlines and instructors notes.

This USGS Canyonlands Research Station site features a series of web pages focusing on biological soil crusts. Biological soil crusts are the community of organisms living at the surface of desert soils. The site provides a menu of links to biological soil crust pages including Crusts 101: an introduction to biological soil crusts, an advanced page with a downloadable 90-page report on soil crusts, a gallery of biological soil crust images and figures, references, the Canyon Country Ecosystems Research Site (CCERS), and other related links.

This is of help in planning teaching strategies in the biological sciences for students with visual or orthopedic disabilities.

An investigative laboratory developed for the introductory biology curriculum using transgenic plants is presented in this chapter. The transgenic Arabidopsis plants we use contain the GUS reporter gene under the control of the cor15a gene promoter, which responds to cold stress. Following induction by cold or other environmental signals, the gusA gene will respond by producing the enzyme beta-glucuronidase (GUS). When plant tissue is incubated with the chromogenic substrate X-gluc, those tissues that produce GUS turn blue. Using investigative experiments, students monitor both the physiological response of plants to these signals, as well as the induction of gene activity as reflected by GUS activity. The GUS assay is highly visible, safe for the undergraduate laboratory, easy to conduct, and relatively inexpensive. Blue Plants, developed at Purdue University with support from NSF-DUE grant #9354721, are one of the Research Link 2000 systems (http://www.researchlink.ferris.edu).

The UBC Botanical Garden will be used to demonstrate the wide range of possibilities for teaching using materials that are available in situ or freshly collected. An exercise in general systematics will use materials from the British Columbia Native Garden; the uses of plants as chemical sources will be examined with materials from the Physick Garden; the diversity of morphology will be examined using plants from the Food Garden; environmental and physiological adaptations will be seen in the Alpine Garden plants.

In this course, you will learn the basics of plant biology. The student will begin with plant anatomy, learning the names and functions of all of the parts of a plant, then move on to plant physiology, where you will learn about photosynthesis, growth, and reproduction. Next, the student will study plant evolution according to the fossil record and examine the diversity of plant life in existence today and how that diversity impacts global ecology. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: identify and describe the functions of the different cells, tissues, and organs that make up a plant; describe the major life processes in plants (photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, growth and development, and reproduction) at the tissue, organ, cellular, and molecular level; explain the history and evolution of plants on earth; discuss plant diversity and identify the major characteristics of plant phylogenetic divisions; explain how plants fit into the global ecological system and why they are essential for life on earth. (Biology 306)

Students are introduced to the work of botanists and botanical illustrators, and specifically to their race to make records of endangered plant species around the world. Students examine illustrations, photographs, and dried specimens of endangered plants and consider the conservation value of an illustration over a photographic image. In a second session, students try their own hands at botanical illustration and follow the methods of a Smithsonian staff illustrator. Pencils, markers, tracing paper, and access to a photocopier are required.

Connexions course version of the Los Amigos Conservation Area website.

Bridging the Watershed (BTW) is an outreach program of the Alice Ferguson Foundation, in partnership with the National Park Service and area schools, whose purpose is to provide personally meaningful, educational experiences that connect students to their place in the natural and cultural world. BTW offers 5 core modules, as well as a host of park-specific curriculum units, that offer classroom lessons to prepare students for their field studies, guidance for data analysis after a field study, and background information on the subjects covered in the module.

As part of their general education studies, all students at the University of Kentucky must take two natural science courses. Many non-science majors choose the biology sequence of courses. Unfortunately these courses are lecture-only courses, and so some students can graduate without ever having had a science laboratory course. In an effort to provide students with some laboratory experience, I have developed / adapted a number of laboratory activities, which I have successfully incorporated into a non-majors biology course (Human Ecology). These activities are carried out in a lecture hall with 300 students in 50-minute time periods. In this chapter, two of these laboratory activities are presented. 1) Soil Testing - students test soil samples for nitrogen, potassium, phosphate and pH; compare the relative fertility of different soil samples; and carry out an inventory of animal and microbial life in soil samples. 2) Water Pollution Testing - students examine the effects of household chemicals on water quality (from Using Fast Plants and Bottle Biology in the Classroom, published by National Association of Biology Teachers, 1994, ISBN #0-941212-17-3).

Task Description: Students explore the concept of addition and subtraction combining and dividing seeds in a pot. Students pretend to be busy gardeners, adding seeds to the pot to plant and grow, or hungry birds, swooping down from high above to subtract seeds from the pot to eat. Students will explore plants, including their attributes and growth cycle, over the course of one month or longer. This interdisciplinary unit on plants consists of 4 sequence learning plans. Each activity or learning plan works best with a small group of 4-5 students, in centers, over the course of one week. Duration of student engagement in tasks will vary, but the recommendation for each activity is 20 minutes or less. This Common Core-aligned task for mathematics is to be used in correlation with the Common Core-aligned task for literacy, Plants Are All Around Us.

Task Description: Students observe plants in their neighborhood and classroom and discover how books provide factual information about real life things, like plants. Students will explore plants, including their attributes and growth cycle, over the course of one month or longer. This interdisciplinary unit on plants consists of 4 sequences learning plans. Each activity or learning plan works best with a small group of 4-5 students over the course of one week. Duration of student engagement in tasks will vary, but the recommendation is of each activity is 20 minutes or less. This Common Core-aligned literacy task is to be used in correlation with the curriculum embedded common core aligned task for mathematics, How Many Little Seeds?

This exercise introduces students to concepts of photosynthesis at the whole organism level and to computer utilization in biology. Changes in carbon dioxide concentration are measured in environmental chambers using gas analyzers connected to computers. Carbon dioxide changes are graphed in real time as the plants take up CO2. Over a short time, sunflower seedlings show dramatic changes in CO2 uptake when light intensity is altered or color filters are used. Comparison of the resulting graphs will indicate treatment differences in the rate of carbon dioxide change. Modifying the basic experimental design allows this exercise to be used in a variety of courses.

This exercise will demonstrate to students the fluxes of certain inorganic ions in the roots of barley plants. It will familiarize them with the chemiosmotic principles that are involved in ATP synthesis and give them an understanding of solute transport.