Christopher Chirdon
Project 2:
This collection of resources were put together to address needs mainly in the area of cellular biology. Sub-topics include mitosis, meiosis, genetics, and the molecular basis of inheritance. Some of the specific areas that students find highly abstract or mind-numbingly boring include mitosis (nuclear division) and the physical processes involved during cytokinesis (cytoplasmic division). The resources below approach these topic areas from many different angles. Some use technology and the ubiquitous nature of the computer and provide digital video representations of abstract concepts or those that are difficult to view with great clarity with the limited tools available to many schools. Others provide information about important biological processes in an incidental manner, as is the case of Richard Preston’s website which focuses on the Ebola virus and its infamous virulence. This collection is comprised of a number of sources that aim to complement second level or advanced high-school textbooks. Most are supplemental in nature or provide video, game style, and exploration style activities and information.
Rediscovering Biology This is an outstanding site for introduction to biological concepts. I stumbled across it while looking for drosophila segmentation gene expression and polarity gradients. It is a website that does goes into extensive detail about most of the concepts important to biology. It is aimed at explaining these concepts in detail and could be used by learners and educators alike.
Richard Preston dot Net This website provides a wealth of information for the instructor who might like to include readings from Richard Preston’s popular novels “The Hot Zone”, “The Cobra Event”, and others. The site contains discussions directly from Richard Preston on the philosophy of biology and science. It has lesson plan content, vocabulary, and reading guides. It is aimed at teachers seeking to capture the attention of students by allowing a text to grab hold of their imagination and carry them for a wild ride. Technology is utilized mainly in the form of the website itself; that is, the books “The Hot Zone” and “The Cobra Effect” are not in and of themselves teaching texts. The website provides the content and framework for making the text a valuable instructional strategy.
The Biology Project This website is a product of the University of Arizona’s biology department. It holds a wealth of information about biological processes at a moderate depth. The site seems to be a freestanding repository of biological knowledge. The site provides a number of resources focused on general biological knowledge and processes, but of particular value are the “online labs”. The online onion root tip lab that is an excellent synthesis of technology with what was a “cookbook” lab. It is very directed, but in categorizing 36 different cells as to their mitotic stage students reinforce this important (but boring) skill set. The culmination of the activity is to have students estimate the amounts of time a cell spends in each of the 5 mitotic stages. If a student selects an incorrect category, they are delivered to a page that describes why the cell is not in the state the student originally slelected. The lab is directed, students cannot get an incorrect answer (something that is reassuring to them), it’s relatively easy, and my students loved it. Technology is used ultimately to provide background information and in the form of online labs.
Biology 1 Interactive Animations, Tutorials, and Links. This is a clearinghouse of useful links. This (self referential) is a list of links. The website listed at the link above is an uber-list of links. It is a seemingly well-maintained list that is broken down into different biological subjects. I offer it as a starting point for teachers who are looking for teaching resources directed at a particular biological concept. Information that is linked to takes the form of lesson plans, activities, and videos. Under each category such as cellular transport, meiosis/mitosis, DNA sequencing/mutiation, this page has 8-20 links to other pages that have an activity or video.
Genetic Science Learning Center This website concentrates on human genetics including an array of information about karyotyping. It includes examples of a large number of abnormal karyotypes including down syndrome, kleinfelters syndrome, turner syndrome, etc. The resource holds activities on karyotyping and houses extensive database of genetic disorders. There are other activities that provide a basis for mastering the concepts involved. The activities, while not ideal, are adequate to introduce students to many of the disorders on the page. The page may also be used as an “online database” for students to use to research meiotic abnormalities.
NobelPrize.org NobelPrize.org is the Nobel Prize Committee’s means of making the research for which the prize itself is conferred understandable by students. This site has absolutely fantastic simulations of difficult and complex physical and biological processes. They are in the form of flash animation games that can be played by all levels of students. Among them are the “Connect 5” style game that teaches the codon-amino acid relationship of mRNA and proteins. Another is the “control of the cell cycle” game in which students must follow the correct order to allow a cell to grow and divide. Yet another outstanding simulation is a blood-typing activity in which students are introduced to patients requiring blood transfusions. Students pour samples of blood into vials containing agglutination factors, observe the results, and determine the blood type accordingly. Given enough time, I think that one could develop an entire “History of Scientific Breakthroughs” course just around this site. It is every bit as good as I say it is.
Project Gutenburg This resource, while not fitting into the standard science concept, includes links to open source fulltext books. Why would I need those? What are those? Not all books at your local bookstore are actually copyrighted anymore. You may be paying for something that’s free! Well, the content is anyhow. Most of Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Tolstoy, and many other classic and timeless literature is available now online in full-text splendor. These texts may be downloaded then placed into a MS Word document and formatted to fit the instructor’s needs. Texts may be used for your classes in any form you may want. I think it should be brought to students’ attention the philosophy behind “open source”, GNU, and “public domain” resources such as those found on this site. That concept of shared ideas is healthy for science and could also be contrasted with other resources such as the Human Genome Project.
MIT OpenCourse directory This resource is a wealth of courses offered by MIT. The courses cross many disciplines with concentration on the sciences. Most of the course pages contain links to an entire semester worth of lectures. The lectures are mainly offered in streaming Real Media in varying bandwidths. Examine the follwing link: This is a direct link to a lecture from the Spring 2005 on regulation of Genes. At 220Kbps the quality is fantastic and the content is also outstanding. It would likely be used as a refresher for educators or possibly as an alternative to your own lectures. I have planned on using some as examples of what to expect when students get to college, as many of mine are a bit out of touch with what exactly they will encounter. I have been using it to touch up my knowledge of genetics in my copious free time.
Activities from Prentice Hall Prentice Hall’s website for Scott Freeman’s biology text. It includes numerous high-quality Shockwave Animations exploring biological concepts. You’d use this site but you’re using a Rand McNally text? Pay it no mind. There is no loyalty in the world of overpriced texts. Stop by this site to see some very useful (and a few utterly useless) animations and activities. I don’t know Scott Freeman personally, or how good his text might be, but I can say that the teams of animators working on activities for Prentice Hall must be well paid. In all honesty, the animations on this site are without doubt the most clear and comprehensive that I have found. I would recommend getting one of the “shockwave flash” saving utilities and embedding some of these in your own webpage if you want them to be available later.
Case Study Resources This website is devoted to the “case study” teaching method. With an extensive collection of case studies on nearly all topics. This, my friends, is how I learned neuroscience. Our lecturer lectured and asked questions, and we listened and hypothesized; diligently. It was a wonderful experience. Try to work these case studies into your curriculum. Some are a bit deep for high school kids, some are poorly put together and will require more refinement before service. But there is a wealth of excellent teaching material that kids can relate to more than other things.
Reflecton It is also interesting how many different sites use “technology”…poorly. While Flash animation is nice, if it is not done correctly it is useless to educators. Throwing money at a problem does not usually improve it nor does it fix it, it just throws money away. The situation is just this for those school districts that were trying to get themselves up to speed technologically when that was very vogue. I heard that Quaker Valley purchased enough laptop computers for each student to have one… or at least every science student to have one. This is only definitely “nice” but not necessarily a particularly wise use of money. Another issue I have noticed is inadequate administration and repair of computer labs. Schools seem to buy computers and technology, and for a time use them. Somewhere down the road however they don’t maintain them and they become awkward and inefficient. I personally have access to a lab with 24 computers in it. Few of the mice are functional and only only 6 computers can print to the 2 $1000+ networked laser printers in the room. Even those lucky enough to print to the printers will not get work out of them because there isn’t any paper in them. It’s beginning to really bug me.
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