Evolutionary anthropologists commonly describe humans as a highly cooperative species, based on our evolved socio-cognitive capacities. However, students and the general public may not necessarily share this view about our species. At the same time, fostering our ability to cooperate is considered a key foundation for achieving sustainable development, and students' understanding of the conditions that enable or hinder cooperation is therefore an important learning goal in sustainability education. In this article, we describe a small classroom activity that explored students' and preservice biology teachers' preconceptions about the human capacity to cooperate around shared resources in comparison to the capacity of our closest relative, the chimpanzee. Results indicate that students and teachers had limited knowledge about the evolved human capacity for cooperation around shared resources in small groups, most often viewing chimpanzees as more capable of cooperation and sustainable resource use. Based on the results of this classroom intervention, we highlight important learning opportunities for educators in biology on teaching human evolution and human behavior, particularly as related to current challenges of sustainable development.

Teaching and understanding evolution is challenging because students must synthesize several biological processes that are traditionally taught separately. We developed a set of free online lessons and activities centered on a single evolutionary phenomenon – why deer mice have different fur colors in different subpopulations – to help high school students better understand how these different biological processes, operating at different scales, work together to influence a single organismal trait. Through scaffolded investigations, guiding questions, model building, and pointed analysis, students learn how ecology, cellular biology, molecular biology, genetic inheritance, and population genetics all work together to influence a shift in fur color over time. Using an innovative multilevel simulation, students manipulate and examine these different processes from the population level all the way down to the DNA level. In this article, we describe the lessons and materials we have developed for high school biology students. We outline the learning goals and highlight the major components of the technology and activities in each lesson. We then provide information on how to access our curricular and support materials, and conclude with user feedback from our pilot testing.

Promoting student understanding of biological concepts is a key part of biology education, and the ability to “understand” a concept forms one of the six categories of the oft-used Bloom's Taxonomy. Despite this, there remains no consensus as to what it means to understand a concept. While several formal definitions have been offered, we investigated how biology instructors and biology education researchers define the term and how they perceived the skill sets needed for a student to understand a concept in the context of assessments. We found that there was no agreement on the definition of understanding, and that responses differed in the cognitive level required to reach “understanding” of a concept. We discuss these findings in the context of Bloom's Taxonomy and variation theory and provide directions for future inquiries. We conclude by discussing implications for biology instructors and the importance of explicitly conveying expectations to better align student and instructor expectations.

In a traditional anatomy and physiology lab, the general senses – temperature, pain, touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception – and the special senses – olfaction (smell), vision, gustation (taste), hearing, and equilibrium – are typically taught in isolation. In reality, information derived from these individual senses interacts to produce the complex sensory experience that constitutes perception. To introduce students to the concept of multisensory integration, a crossmodal perception lab was developed. In this lab, students explore how vision impacts olfaction and how vision and olfaction interact to impact flavor perception. Students are required to perform a series of multisensory tasks that focus on the interaction of multiple sensory inputs and their impact on flavor and scent perception. Additionally, students develop their own hypothesis as to which sensory modalities they believe will best assist them in correctly identifying the flavor of a candy: taste alone, taste paired with scent, or taste paired with vision. Together these experiments give students an appreciation for multisensory integration while also encouraging them to actively engage in the scientific method. They are then asked to hypothesize the possible outcome of one last experiment after collecting and assessing data from the prior tasks.

Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are core concepts in high school biology, as they are at the core of all living things. However, perhaps because students can't see them happening, they very often have difficulty understanding them. Further, students often come into biology with a limited understanding of the law of conservation of matter as it relates to chemical reactions. These problems compound to create a great deal of misconceptions about these two important processes. In these lessons, I implemented the use of modeling to overcome these misconceptions and give my students a firm understanding of chemical equations, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration.

NGSS guidance indicates that a life science curriculum's unit on evolution must include the concepts of geologic ages, endangered species, Anthropocene extinction, and biodiversity. Enrichment lessons and labs deepen student understanding of key standards. This lesson enriches students by presenting a real-world opportunity for species conservation. First, instructors ensure a common understanding of background knowledge among students. Second, levels of species endangerment are introduced and students participate in a “willingness to pay” lab involving a philatelic-based fund to protect endangered species. Third, predicted student donation amounts are compared to actual costs needed to conserve and manage species in the wild. Finally, summative reports communicate actual conservation needs by comparing and contrasting two endangered species.

Fluorescence technology has many useful applications for both research and teaching, among them the detection of fluorescence in live transgenic organisms and of DNA in agarose gels. However, dedicated fluorescence imaging systems can be expensive and complex. We describe a simple apparatus for non-microscopic fluorescence imaging using affordable and readily available parts. We describe three activities of increasing complexity that utilize fluorescence illumination and teach principles of fluorescence. At the high school level, our more advanced activities can be used for lessons addressing NGSS performance expectations in HS-LS3 and HS-LS4.

Timeline Challenge (https://timelinechallenge.hudsonalpha.org) engages students in a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) task while they investigate critical advances in agriculture and biotechnology. This freely available digital resource scaffolds students' investigation of biotechnology by presenting a current and ongoing agricultural problem. The Timeline Challenge utilizes the Progress of Science biotechnology timeline as the backdrop for a series of agriculture-based challenges, such as producing meatier chickens, non-browning apples, or perennial wheat. This web-based module allows students to choose a specific biotech tool to address the challenge and then compare their plan to ongoing modern research related to the challenge. Along the way, students are presented with a real-world complication to encourage thinking about the problem from multiple perspectives.

Growth in the use of drones has been exponential in various fields due to their adaptable and cross-disciplinary functions. Incorporating this new technology into K–12 classrooms can be useful in engaging students and expanding their understanding of technology in the scientific workplace; however, beginners may run into challenges in designing meaningful lessons. To tackle the seemingly daunting task of using drones effectively for education, this article walks a novice instructor through various self-reflective questions in order to properly introduce a drone lesson and includes a number of resources to ensure proper safety and legal measures.