Hands-on Biology Activities

We invite comments on Hands-on Activities for Teaching Biology to High School and Middle School Students, including suggestions for other teachers, useful preparatory or follow-up activities, additional resources or any questions you have, or a brief description of any problem you might have encountered.

If you would prefer to send your comments or questions in a private message, please write Ingrid Waldron at iwaldron@sas.upenn.edu.

In the lab, Cellular Respiration in Yeast, students learn about the basics of metabolism and then design and carry out experiments to test how sugar concentration and other variables influence the rate of anaerobic respiration in yeast. In an optional extension activity students can use their yeast mixture to make a small roll of bread.

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In the lab, Get the Lead Out! Game, this board game reinforces learning about the sources and biological hazards of lead exposure.

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In the lab, Sexual Health and Reproduction, this activity provides questions and Web sites to guide student investigation of birth control methods, fetal development, risks of alcohol and smoking during pregnancy, changes during puberty, and HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

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In the lab, Studying Our Senses, students investigate how a person identifies different flavors of jellybeans and explore the surprising ways the brain interprets the patterns of light and dark that reach our eyes.

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In the lab, Breathing and Holding Your Breath, students begin with interactive activities to develop a basic understanding of regulation of breathing and then carry out an experiment to test whether changing levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide influence how long they can hold their breath.

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In the lab, Regulation of Human Heart Rate, students learn how to measure heart rate accurately. Then students design and carry out an experiment to test the effects of an activity or stimulus on heart rate, analyze and interpret the data, and present their experiments in a poster session.

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In the lab, Invertebrate Diversity, students compare basic characteristics of earthworms, snails, and several arthropods, all of which can be purchased at low cost from local pet stores.

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In the lab, Some Similarities between the Spread of an Infectious Disease and Population Growth, a simple simulation demonstrates exponential spread of infectious disease in a population, and discussion questions develop student understanding of how human diseases spread. Additional discussion questions and a graphing activity develop an understanding of exponential and logistic population growth.

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In the lab, Evolution by Natural Selection, principles of natural selection are demonstrated by a simulation involving different color pompoms on different color and texture habitats and student feeders equipped with different types of feeding implement. Students learn how different adaptations contribute to differences in survival and reproductive success, which results in changing frequencies of genotypes in the populations.

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