Hank introduces us to one of the most diverse and important families in the tree of life - the vascular plants. These plants have found tremendous success and the their secret is also their defining trait: conductive tissues that can take food and water from one part of a plant to another part. Though it sounds simple, the ability to move nutrients and water from one part of an organism to another was a evolutionary breakthrough for vascular plants, allowing them to grow exponentially larger, store food for lean times, and develop features that allowed them to spread farther and faster. Plants dominated the earth long before animals even showed up, and even today hold the world records for the largest, most massive, and oldest organisms on the planet.

This site provides everything you need to do a virtual fetal pig dissection.

All the systems are covered and there are even quizzes.

The concept of water activity is important to food preservation. When water activity is less than 0.6, almost all microbes, including bacteria, molds, and yeasts, stop growing. Vegetables are usually dried even further, to water activity of 0.3 or 0.2, for quality and storage. Virtual Labs – Controlling Water Activity in Food explores a traditional method of preserving corn by drying. In this virtual laboratory, learners test water activity levels of dried corn and explore how they change under three different storage environments. The interactive animation guides users through the theory and practice of sampling a food product, using a water activity meter, and setting up replicates, to build familiarity with concepts and procedures used in real food science labs. Before beginning this lab, it may be useful to complete Virtual Labs – Understanding Water Activity.

Testing the pH of a substance (how acidic or basic it is) is a basic lab test and provides a important piece of information for natural science investigations. In food science, the pH of a substance – how acidic or basic it is – is key to how it functions in food recipes. This module introduces users to the pH scale and its uses in food science. Then, users learn how to use the pH meter, and calibrate it by measuring solutions of standard value. Virtual Labs – the pH Scale & Meter Calibration familiarizes the user with food science lab equipment and teaches standard techniques for this specific procedure. The interactive animation guides the user through theory and practice of using the pH scale and pH measurement, so they will have familiarity with the equipment and procedures when encountered in a real lab.

Moist foods – like fresh fruit or raw meat – often have high water activity and spoil quickly. But some foods that seem moist – like jam or pepperoni – don’t spoil as quickly. Why is this? All living things need water to survive. Enzymes and chemical reactions also require water. If water activity is less than 0.6, almost all microbes, including bacteria, molds, and yeasts, stop growing. This means that food can be preserved against spoilage by lowering its water activity – whether by evaporating water away or binding it up. Virtual Labs – Understanding Water Activity familiarizes the user with food science lab equipment and standard techniques for measuring water activity. The interactive animation guides the user through both theory and practice, preparing them for experiences in a real lab. Complete this lab first, then follow up with Virtual Labs – Controlling Water Activity.

Developed for third grade. Line graph, individual tables for charting each person's pulse rate, and one large table for the entire class.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Developed for third grade. Students will explore the water cycle by creating a miniature environment in a large plastic container. Students will make two different set-ups that will yield similar yet different results.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Developed for second grade. In this activity students will be able to view the different ways water travels and the different forms in which water can be found. The experiment focuses mainly on evaporation, transpiration, condensation and precipitation within the 3 different soda bottle chambers. Students will create their own water cycle chambers by using 3 soda bottles (2 with the bottoms cut off) turned upside down and placed one inside the other. The bottom soda bottle will be filled with the most water representing ground water, the middle soda bottle is filled with some moist soil and beans along with another soda cap or film canister to represent an ocean/lake and the top chamber is then filled with ice cold water to represent clouds in the atmosphere. The chambers are then connected by strings which show evaporation, precipitation and percolation. Over time the students will be able to observe how our environment reuses and recycles water and how the water cycle keeps plants alive.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Hank teaches us why water is one of the most fascinating and important substances in the universe.

Developed for sixth grade. There are two key concepts covered in this lesson: first, how pollution can affect plants, and, second, how polluted plants affect the rest of the food cycle. In sum, this lesson teaches students about "Bioaccumulation".Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Students are presented with the unit's grand challenge problem: You are the lead engineer for a biomaterials company that has a cardiovascular systems client who wants you to develop a model that can be used to test the properties of heart valves without using real specimens. How might you go about accomplishing this task? What information do you need to create an accurate model? How could your materials be tested? Students brainstorm as a class, then learn some basic information relevant to the problem (by reading the transcript of an interview with a biomedical engineer), and then learn more specific information on how heart tissues work their structure and composition (lecture information presented by the teacher). This prepares them for the associated activity, during which students cement their understanding of the heart and its function by dissecting sheep hearts to explore heart anatomy.

Developed for second grade. In this experiment students will learn about the sugar content in foods and the detrimental effects sugar can have on teeth, as well as the importance of dental care.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Developed for second grade. First the teacher will explain the 5 trophic levels of a food chain to the students using the hand out with the sample food chain (Figure 1). Then once they have learned about trophic levels, autotrophs, and heterotrophs, each student can begin looking through the magazines and cutting out pictures of animals to create their own food chain. Once each student has completed his or her food chain, you can have them share them with the group.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Visitors to this site can study a discussion of the need for computer modeling to examine the terrestrial biosphere. Emphasis is placed on integration of multiple measurements across varying scales of time and space into a single tool for visualizing a system, and its use in predicting future changes. Links to a glossary are embedded in the text.

Developed for second grade. Each group of students will be constructing their own worm ecosystem in a 2 liter soda bottle. They will be combining soil, gravel and sand in the bottle and then adding a bunch of worms to the material. The students will be planting a seed within the soil to observe how the plant shall grow over time. We will have six 2 liter soda bottles with worms and six 2 liter bottles without worms. The students will be examining how the worms affect the growing of the seed.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Developed for third grade. This activity will explore the uses of birds beaks in the wild. The activity features 8 stations in which students will hypothesize, test, and record the data they observe. This is a hands-on and interactive experiment that the students are sure to enjoy.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

Hank tells us about the team of deadly ninja assassins that is tasked with protecting our bodies from all the bad guys that want to kill us - also known as our immune system.

Developed for third grade. This activity is fairly straightforward and simple. Each student will grow one to three plants from various beans that are placed in a bag. As the plants grow, students will observe how the appearances change daily, and then again over a longer period of time, such as two weeks.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.