Episodic history of major scientific events can be an effective tool for sharing the excitement and eureka moments of scientific revolutions, especially in classrooms with both science and nonscience majors. By introducing the principal characters and the timeline involved in a scientific discovery, teachers can inculcate a scientific thought process in the students. This may in turn lead to a classroom environment in which students can develop analytical skills that are required to understand the basic concepts and the underlying characteristics of a scientific theory, instead of blindly accepting textbook facts.

The media will likely be a major source of science information after college for non-science majors. It is thus essential that all students learn to critically read newspaper/Internet science. I have adapted the CREATE approach, an active-learning method originally designed for close reading of journal articles (Hoskins et al., 2007), for use with a newspaper article written for the general public. The analysis challenges students to read closely, learn to represent data and design experiments, and think creatively about scientific issues and their social implications. The approaches outlined here can be adapted to any scientific reading and analysis.

We describe the concepts and resources presented during a workshop offered to high school biology teachers using sickle cell disease as a theme in a biology course. We provide their pretest and posttest results and reactions.

We describe two instructional techniques that science teachers can use to promote and support scientific argumentation inside the classroom. These techniques are designed to give students an opportunity to establish or validate a claim on the basis of reasons or to propose, support, evaluate, and refine a claim as part of a group. The description of the techniques includes two example lessons and suggestions for teachers.

Several common dragonfly species perch at different heights. Using dowels as perches and simple chi-square tests, this pattern of resource partitioning can be described quickly and easily. Additional experiments can examine the effect of interspecific competition on perch selection, and the relationships between perching height, body size, and wing aerodynamics.

Students of animal behavior must learn to accurately define and quantify observations and to be aware of observational bias. We designed an introductory, college-level animal behavior laboratory that uses a free, online citizen-science project (CamClickr) to help students identify and overcome biases when interpreting observations. The exercise encourages proficiency in making structural descriptions of animal behavior while teaching students to use ethograms to generate and test discrete hypotheses.

Chemical digestion, the decomposition of macromolecules by the action of enzymes, begins in the mouth and stomach but occurs primarily in the small intestine. This exercise shows how to construct a simulated stomach and duodenum using common laboratory equipment and chemicals. The lab clearly demonstrates the effect of a gastric enzyme, pepsin, on proteins while leaving other food substances intact.

In this activity, groups of students assume the roles of human body organs. They work together to acquire the knowledge needed to develop a skit to “act out” the argument that their selected organ is the most important one in the body. The students learn and reinforce their understanding of the composition and functions of organs and organ systems and how they interrelate to allow for the survival of the body as a whole while maintaining homeostasis throughout life.