Global climate change will affect all living things on this planet. For many species, the change in their environment may mean extinction. However, there is one organism, the mosquito, that may benefit from changes in the climate. This paper addresses the possible effects of climate change on mosquitoes, including longer breeding seasons and increased hatch rates of populations. The enlarged population will cause mosquitoes to seek more territory, and the warmer climate will in turn make more territory available. If mosquitoes increase in population, there may be an amplification of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya virus, St. Louis encephalitis, West Nile virus, and the Zika virus. This trend of increased range because of climate change has already been observed in dengue fever. This information can be used as an engaging segue into teaching students about climate change and vector-borne disease.

In this paper, we present an augmented reality learning system that uses the input of a depth camera to interactively teach anatomy to high school students. The objective is to exemplify human anatomy by displaying 3D models over the body of a person in real time, using the Microsoft Kinect depth camera. The users can see how bones, muscles, or organs are distributed in their bodies without the use of targets for tracking.

Research indicates that student learning of science, student attitudes toward science, and their motivation to learn science and pursue science-related careers is related to classroom instruction. This study examined anatomy and physiology (A&P) classes in a south Texas high school where 97 percent of students are Hispanic bilingual learners. Classes were assigned to control or treatment groups, with the treatment group receiving instruction designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of anatomy vocabulary related to brain structures by making connections to these words in everyday life as well as to their understanding of Spanish. Main effects between group and test scores were significant, with the control group reporting higher test scores than the treatment group. We attribute this finding to a bleed-over of the treatment group instructional design to the control group. In addition, significant differences in mean and median scores were observed with respect to intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. The statistically significant increases in learning for both groups suggests the activity-, problem-, and project-based (APB) curriculum has the potential to be an effective type of instruction, especially for bilingual learners.

A five-week research project was designed as part of a summer internship for high school students, and could also be used with educators or in introductory undergraduate research courses. This is a guided-inquiry-based project, framed within the significant issue of supplementing fertilizer use in agriculture with nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. This experience exposes students to how scientists are studying real-world problems; it teaches them basic research techniques, and promotes inquiry-based learning in a real research environment. It also fills a current gap in K-12 education that lacks enough microbiology emphasis. Research interns collect soil samples from various fields and use culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques to test whether there are nitrogen-fixing microorganisms that can be isolated and identified in each soil sample. Students work in a research laboratory making nitrogen-free media; culturing, isolating, and identifying microorganisms; extracting soil DNA; and amplifying the 16S rRNA and nifH genes. We administer a pre-test and a post-test, and students present their research both in a short talk and with a poster. By hosting high school students in a research laboratory and immersing them in laboratory science, we hope to inspire them to pursue a STEM-related career.

This article describes a sustained, student-driven, inquiry-based set of activities meant to illuminate the scientific process from the initial scientific questions to oral dissemination of results. It is appropriate for science majors and nonmajors, advanced high school through upper-level college courses. Involving students in hands-on, self-driven investigations will allow them to see the challenges of quantitative scientific investigations, and the role of scientific creativity in experimental design and interpretation. This project allows a large group of students to engage in the type of research project often only available to students working one-on-one with instructors or in research labs. This activity requires skeletons of multiple species of small mammals, but there are many ways to alter the project to suit available resources. We expect that students involved in hands-on, self-directed scientific investigations early in their academic careers are less likely to view science as a mere accumulation of facts and more likely to be empowered to participate later in more sustained scientific investigations.

Regeneration has long fascinated humanity, and its documentation has progressed from simple descriptive observations to the intense molecular and cellular investigations of today. The overarching goal of this work is to make the key methods and tools being used in modern regeneration and stem cell biology research accessible to docents and students in the classroom. We have designed a series of experimental activities with accompanying protocols using four inexpensive, commercially available planarian species indigenous to North America: Girardia sp., Dugesia dorotocephala, Phagocata morgani, and Phagocata gracilis. These planarians are fast and robust regenerators, and can easily be maintained in the classroom. The activities presented here can be used to guide students through hypothesis-driven experiments, and range from simple manipulations aimed at high school students (e.g., planarian husbandry, feeding, and cutting experiments) to gene expression and protein function analyses suitable for college students. Regeneration time courses, the more complex whole worm in situ hybridizations, and RNA interference for gene knock-down experiments are described for each of the four species. Cumulatively, the suggested methods and experiments will facilitate the exploration of animal regeneration biology and promote curiosity-driven, hands-on application of the scientific method.

Traditionally, exploration of ecosystems in the context of undergraduate education has been restricted to connections within conventionally defined habitats (i.e., within a stream, within a forest). Further, instruction regarding the aquatic-terrestrial interface has emphasized directional inputs from land to water. However, a relatively new body of research has characterized reciprocal interactions and draws attention to fluxes from water to land, including the emergence of aquatic insects that serve as prey for terrestrial predators. We present a guide to an inquiry-based lesson for undergraduate biology that explores interactions and connections across aquatic and terrestrial habitat boundaries. The focus is on cross-habitat linkages within ecosystems, specifically addressing the question, What is the role of insect emergence in connecting the web of life linking aquatic and terrestrial habitats and organisms? Students (1) engage with a documentary film, (2) explore insect emergence and make observations of riparian insectivores, (3) explain the collected data, (4) elaborate on alternative study designs and a measure of ecosystem health, and (5) evaluate their new understanding. This lesson addresses core concepts and competencies for undergraduate biology education, as identified in the Vision and Change report.

The activity described in this article is designed to provide biology students with opportunities to engage in a range of academic language as they learn the discipline-specific meanings of the terms “drug,” “poison,” “toxicant,” and “toxin.” Although intended as part of an introductory lesson in a comprehensive unit for the high school level, this approach to teaching academic language can be adapted for use with older or younger students and can be modified to teach other terms.

Transpiration is one of the most important water-related phenomena in plant physiology. Various types of semi-quantitative methods for demonstrating this process are available, one of which is the potometer. We offer here a better design for the single-leaf potometer resulting in an easy-to-make, unbreakable, and basic instrument that can reduce the cost of laboratory work in biology instruction and provide a tool that students might use for science fair projects.

Students often have limited understanding of the major innovations in plant evolution. We developed a card sorting activity based on tree thinking that is suitable for students with a wide range of abilities and experience. Through this activity, students learn how scientists organize taxa into biologically meaningful, natural groups that illustrate important events in terrestrial plant evolution. The activity corresponds to several NGSS standards and is suitable for use in classroom or laboratory settings and as a public educational outreach activity.

The Botanical Phylo-Card Game addresses several components of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) such as Inheritance/Variation in Traits (3-LS3-1, HS-LS3-1, HS-LS4-2) and Natural Selection/Evolution (MS-LS4-2, HS-LS4-1). The game involves disciplinary core ideas about biodiversity, evolution, and common ancestry; crosscutting concepts regarding identification and interpretation of patterns; and scientific practices of constructing explanations and engaging in arguments from evidence that can guide individualized implementation and assessment of the activity by different instructors.