CourseSource: Resources

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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The Flight Physics Concept Inventory: Reliably Evaluating Aerodynamic Lift, Drag and Associated (Naïve) Concepts of Flight in Class and In-Game

Students often struggle to transfer conceptual understanding from isolated instruction to a coherent mental model. This is especially true for the context of flight physics, fluid dynamics, or the concepts of aerodynamic lift, drag, stall, center...

Courses: Introductory Physics: Calculus-Based

active learninggamificationmisconceptionsaerodynamicsfluid dynamicsResearch-based assessment instrumentConceptual SurveyPRE-/POST-test

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227

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39

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Environmental Injustice: When the Grass is Greener on the Other Side

Environmental pollution is a global threat that is especially prevalent in heavily industrialized and urbanized areas. Pollution can be found in many forms, such as natural and synthetic pollutants from natural and anthropogenic processes. These...

Courses: Ecology Ecology Introductory Biology Science Process Skills Toxicology

human healthenvironmental injusticeEnvironmental PollutionSystemic BiasesIdeological AwarenessUrban Ecology and Development

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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Preparing Student Study Guides through Peer Collaboration in the Technological Era

Incorporating active learning exercises into large lecture courses is particularly challenging, especially when it comes to examination preparation materials. Traditionally, study guides are used as a tool to guide student learning and review...

Courses: Introductory Biology Professional Development and Career Planning Science Process Skills

active learningDiscussionStudy Skills

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Grow the Gradient: An interactive countercurrent multiplier game

The countercurrent multiplier of the loop of Henle in a mammalian kidney is a challenging concept for instructors to teach and for students to learn. We developed an interactive game to support student learning of this dynamic process with a team...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology Introductory Biology

countercurrent multiplierexcretory systemkidneyloop of Henlemembrane transport

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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In-class peer grading of daily quizzes increases feedback opportunities

Educators are familiar with evidence of the benefit that frequent and immediate feedback provides to our students, regardless of class size. We also often find ourselves in a situation where we do not have enough time planned or TA support...

Courses: Introductory Biology

foundational knowledgegraphical interpretationtechnical terms

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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Lateral Transfer Maps as a Metacognitive Tool in First Year STEM Courses

We introduce the Lateral Transfer Map (LTM), a tool for students to actively and visually explore the transfer of ideas, skills, and concepts across concurrent coursework. The LTM is an extension of a concept map, replacing interconnected concepts...

Courses: Professional Development and Career Planning Science Process Skills

concept mapmetacognitionfirst-year studenttransfer

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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An Interactive Protocol for In-Classroom DNA Extraction

Using commonly available materials, this tool allows students to extract DNA, exploring DNA chemistry and the principles of experimental design and execution. We take a “Choose Your Own Adventure” approach encouraging students to...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Genetics Introductory Biology

geneticsDNAbiochemical structure and function

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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's biomechanics!

Biomechanics is a discipline that draws from physics and engineering principles to understand the movement and structure of living organisms. It is highly interdisciplinary in nature and can be incorporated into general biology and ecology...

Courses: Anatomy-Physiology Ecology Ecology Evolution

EvolutionecologybatphysiologyAnatomybirdFlightforcesinsect

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Exploring the City of Biofilms: An Engaging Analogy-Based Activity for Students to Learn Biofilms

Multicellular biofilms constructed by microbes are key aspects of microbiology with significant implications in various fields, including medicine, environmental science, and biotechnology. While bacteria spend nearly all their lives in biofilms,...

Courses: Microbiology

bacteriaBiofilmsquorum sensing

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Evaluating the Quick Fix: Weight Loss Drugs and Cellular Respiration

One key to student success in introductory and cell biology courses is a foundational knowledge of cellular respiration. This is a content area in which students often harbor misconceptions that make cellular respiration particularly challenging...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Cell Biology Introductory Biology

data analysisCellular RespirationElectron Transport ChainEnergy transformationsMitochondriaOxidative phosphorylationWeight loss drugs24-dinitrophenol (DNP)

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888

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Fruit Fly Genetics in a Day: A Guided Exploration to Help Many Large Sections of Beginning Students Uncover the Secrets of Sex-linked Inheritance

Moving beyond the basic concepts of autosomal Mendelian inheritance to sex-linkage can be difficult for introductory biology students. Although crosses with Drosophila fruit flies have long been a mainstay of genetics units that teach these...

Courses: Genetics

Mendelian Geneticsfruit fly biologysex-linked inheritance

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Using Gamification to Teach Undergraduate Students about Scientific Writing

Despite its importance, scientific writing is often deprioritized in undergraduate biology classes. Reasons include assumed prior knowledge, lack of class time, tedious grading, and the complexity and challenges associated with quality writing. To...

Courses: Science Process Skills

gamificationscientific writingE-LearningInstant FeedbackInteractive LearningReading Scientific PapersVIdeo/computer game

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Infectious Chocolate Joy with a Side of Poissonian Statistics: An activity connecting life science students with subtle physics concepts

Introductory physics courses are required for many programs in the life sciences, yet traditional curricula fail to help students meaningfully connect physical concepts with biological systems. In this lesson, we describe an activity taught...

Courses: Bioinformatics Microbiology Science Process Skills

quantitative biologyHIVmultiplicity of infectionPoisson DistributionPhysics for biologists

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Why Meiosis Matters: The case of the fatherless snake

A compelling reason to learn something can make all the difference in students’ motivation to learn it. Motivation, in turn, is one of the key attitudes that drives learning. This story presents students with a compelling puzzle of a...

Courses: Genetics Science Process Skills

meiosismitosissex determinationAsexual reproductionParthenogenesis

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Squirreling Around for Science: Observing Sciurid Rodents to Investigate Animal Behavior

Hands-on research experiences are important opportunities for students to learn about the nature of inquiry and gain confidence in solving problems. Here, we present an inquiry-based lesson plan that investigates the foraging behavior of sciurid...

Courses: Ecology Ecology Introductory Biology Science Process Skills

foragingbehaviorbehavioral ecologySciuridSquirrelSquirrel-NetTrade-offVigilance

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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Science “Fails”: A Bank of Historical Examples for Learning From Failure in Science

Learning from failure is critically important to the processes of scientific inquiry, discovery, and invention. However, students are not routinely taught how to reflect on, learn from, and ultimately embrace failure, and relatively few curricular...

Courses: Introductory Physics: Calculus-Based Introductory Biology Professional Development and Career Planning Science Process Skills

metacognitionScience process skillsLearning from failurepower and privilegestudent wellbeing

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Taking the Hassle out of Hasselbalch

Mention pH in a classroom and you can almost see the inner yawn on the faces of your students. The definition may even roll easily from their lips. However, despite multiple exposures to the relationship of pH and pKa throughout a typical...

Courses: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Science Process Skills

pHdrug uptakeHenderson-Hasslbalch equationmedical applicationspKa

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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Casting a Wide Net via Case Studies: Educating across the undergraduate to medical school continuum in the biological sciences

This article seeks to help bridge undergraduate and medical educators by describing shared educational goals and strategies, highlighting resources relevant for both groups, and exemplifying shared interests through a demonstration resource. Both...

Courses: Genetics

genetic testingdirect-to-consumer genetic testinginformed consentprenatal screeningsecondary findingswhole genome sequencing

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Forensic Phylogenetics: Implementing Tree-thinking in a Court of Law

Here we describe an in-class activity developed for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity (BioEE1780) at Cornell University, an introductory course required of all biology majors. This activity offers instructors an engaging and real-life...

Courses: Microbiology

phylogeneticsTree thinkingparaphyly

Teaching Tools and Strategies

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A Strategy for Teaching Undergraduates to Write Effective Scientific Results Sections

Most undergraduate instructors would agree that learning to write about data in the style of a scientific research paper is a worthy goal for their students. However, many hesitate to tackle the challenge of teaching scientific writing in...

Courses: Science Process Skills

data analysisprimary literaturescientific writingcommunicating science