Course Standards
General Course Information and Notes
General Notes
Special Notes:
Instructional Practices
Teaching from a range of complex text is optimized when teachers in all subject areas implement the following strategies on a routine basis:
- Ensuring wide reading from complex text that varies in length.
- Making close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons.
- Emphasizing text-specific complex questions, and cognitively complex tasks, reinforce focus on the text and cultivate independence.
- Emphasizing students supporting answers based upon evidence from the text.
- Providing extensive research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).
Science and Engineering Practices (NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education, 2010)
- Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering).
- Developing and using models.
- Planning and carrying out investigations.
- Analyzing and interpreting data.
- Using mathematics, information and computer technology, and computational thinking.
- Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering).
- Engaging in argument from evidence.
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.
Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards
This course includes Florida’s B.E.S.T. ELA Expectations (EE) and Mathematical Thinking and Reasoning Standards (MTRs) for students. Florida educators should intentionally embed these standards within the content and their instruction as applicable. For guidance on the implementation of the EEs and MTRs, please visit https://www.cpalms.org/Standards/BEST_Standards.aspx and select the appropriate B.E.S.T. Standards package.
Teachers are required to provide listening, speaking, reading and writing instruction that allows English language learners (ELL) to communicate information, ideas and concepts for academic success in the content area of Science. For the given level of English language proficiency and with visual, graphic, or interactive support, students will interact with grade level words, expressions, sentences and discourse to process or produce language necessary for academic success The ELD standard should specify a relevant content area concept or topic of study chosen by curriculum developers and teachers which maximizes an ELL's need for communication and social skills. To access an ELL supporting document which delineates performance definitions and descriptors, please click on the following link: https://cpalmsmediaprod.blob.core.windows.net/uploads/docs/standards/eld/sc.pdf
General Information
- Class Size Core Required
Educator Certifications
Equivalent Courses
Student Resources
Original Student Tutorials
Explore the topic of Electricity including: how it is transformed into other types of energy, how a circuit works, and electrical conductors and insulators with this interactive research page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Glimpse into the variety of animal adaptations on Earth and the reasons these adaptations allow different animals to survive in various environments with this interactive research page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how plants are adapted to their environment, including their life cycles, responses, physical characteristics, and ability to survive harsh environments with this interactive research page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about organs and structures of the human body, including the senses, skin, muscles, and skeleton, with this interactive research page.
This is part 2 in a three-part series.
- Open Human Body: Part 1 (Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Brain, Reproductive)
- Open Human Body: Part 2 (Senses, Skin, Muscles, Skeleton)
- Open Human Body: Part 3 (Liver, Pancreas, Kidneys, Intestines, and Bladder)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore forms of energy, including mechanical, electrical, heat, light, sound, and chemical, discover ways to investigate these forms of energy, and learn about related technology with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the major climate zones on Earth and learn about the related weather patterns with this interactive research page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the impact of the growth and development of space exploration on the culture and economy of Florida and how the inclusion of private partners helped reach new goals with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 3 in a three-part series. Click below to view the other tutorials in the series.
- Part 1: To the Moon - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 2: The Space Shuttle Era - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 3: Partners in Exploration - Space and the Florida Frontier
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about organs and structures of the human body, including the Liver, pancreas, kidneys, intestines, and bladder in this interactive research page.
This is part 3 in a three-part series.
- Open Human Body: Part 1 (Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Brain, Reproductive)
- Open Human Body: Part 2 (Senses, Skin, Muscles, Skeleton)
- Open Human Body: Part 3 (Liver, Pancreas, Kidneys, Intestines, and Bladder)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how the Space Shuttle program revived the area near Cape Canaveral, Florida, and how the possibility of living in space on the Space Station brought new jobs and excitement with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 2 in a three-part series. Click below to view the other tutorials in the series.
- Part 1: To the Moon - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 2: The Space Shuttle Era - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 3: Partners in Exploration - Space and the Florida Frontier
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the early days of NASA, the work at Cape Canaveral during the Moon missions, and how this work affected the people and economy of Florida with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 1 in a three-part series. Click below to view the other tutorials in the series.
- Part 1: To the Moon - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 2: The Space Shuttle Era - Space and the Florida Frontier
- Part 3: Partners in Exploration - Space and the Florida Frontier
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about how to empower and enourage others with your leadership skills in this interactive resiliency tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to measure and compare the mass of solids as Devin helps Chef Kyle in the bakery with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the heart, lungs, stomach, brain, and reproductive organs in this interactive research page on the organs and structures of the human body.
This is part 1 in a three-part series.
- Open Human Body: Part 1 (Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Brain, Reproductive)
- Open Human Body: Part 2 (Senses, Skin, Muscles, Skeleton)
- Open Human Body: Part 3 (Liver, Pancreas, Kidneys, Intestines, and Bladder)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the water cycle's major stages and the importance of the ocean in the water cycle with this Interactive Science Research Page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore and compare objects in the solar system, including planets, moons, the Sun, comets, and asteroids, with this interactive research page.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore how weathering and erosion may have affected Pnyx Hill, the ancient Greek democratic meeting place which influenced our modern government with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the extraordinary autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, as you examine the author's purpose for writing and his use of the problem and solution text structure. By the end of this interactive tutorial, you should be able to explain how Douglass uses the problem and solution text structure in these excerpts to convey his purpose for writing.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to study George Vest's "Eulogy of the Dog" speech and his use of rhetorical appeals. In Part Two of this two-part series, you'll identify his use of ethos and pathos throughout his speech.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Read George Vest's "Eulogy of the Dog" speech in this two-part interactive tutorial. In this series, you'll identify and examine Vest's use of ethos, pathos, and logos in his speech. In Part One, you'll identify Vest's use of logos in the first part of his speech. In Part Two, you'll identify his use of ethos and pathos throughout his speech.
Make sure to complete both part of this series! Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to study epic similes in excerpts from The Iliad in Part Two of this two-part series. In Part Two, you'll learn about mood and how the language of an epic simile produces a specified mood in excerpts from The Iliad.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to view "That's So Epic: How Epic Similes Contribute to Mood (Part One)."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about how epic similes create mood in a text, specifically in excerpts from The Iliad, in this two-part series.
In Part One, you'll define epic simile, identify epic similes based on defined characteristics, and explain the comparison created in an epic simile.
In Part Two, you'll learn about mood and how the language of an epic simile produces a specified mood in excerpts from The Iliad. Make sure to complete both parts!
Click HERE to view "That's So Epic: How Epic Similes Contribute to Mood (Part Two)."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to read the famous short story “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov and explore the impact of a fifteen-year bet made between a lawyer and a banker. In Part Two, you’ll cite textual evidence that supports an analysis of what the text states explicitly, or directly. You'll also make inferences, support them with textual evidence, and use them to explain how the bet transformed the lawyer and the banker by the end of the story.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to view Part One.
Make sure to complete Part Three after you finish Part Two. Click HERE to view "Risky Betting: Analyzing a Universal Theme (Part Three)."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Read the famous short story “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov and explore the impact of a fifteen-year bet made between a lawyer and a banker in this three-part tutorial series.
In Part One, you’ll cite textual evidence that supports an analysis of what the text states explicitly, or directly, and make inferences and support them with textual evidence. By the end of Part One, you should be able to make three inferences about how the bet has transformed the lawyer by the middle of the story and support your inferences with textual evidence.
Make sure to complete all three parts!
Click HERE to launch "Risky Betting: Text Evidence and Inferences (Part Two)."
Click HERE to launch "Risky Betting: Analyzing a Universal Theme (Part Three)."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Identify rhyme, alliteration, and repetition in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and analyze how he used these sound devices to affect the poem in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study excerpts from the classic American novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott in this interactive English Language Arts tutorial. Using excerpts from chapter eight of Little Women, you'll identify key characters and their actions. You'll also explain how interactions between characters contributes to the development of the plot.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine how allusions contribute to meaning in excerpts from O. Henry's classic American short story “The Gift of the Magi." In this interactive tutorial, you'll determine how allusions in the text better develop the key story elements of setting, characters, and conflict and explain how the allusion to the Magi contributes to the story’s main message about what it means to give a gift.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify imagery in William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" and explain how that imagery contributes to the poem's meaning with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" to determine and compare two universal themes and how they are developed throughout the sonnet.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the form and meaning of William Shakespeare's “Sonnet 18.” In this interactive tutorial, you’ll examine how specific words and phrases contribute to meaning in the sonnet, select the features of a Shakespearean sonnet in the poem, identify the solution to a problem, and explain how the form of a Shakespearean sonnet contributes to the meaning of "Sonnet 18."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Analyze how O. Henry uses details to address the topics of value, sacrifice, and love in his famous short story, "The Gift of the Magi." In this interactive tutorial, you'll also determine two universal themes of the story.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore key story elements in more excerpts from the classic American short story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.
In Part Two of this two-part series, you'll analyze how important information about two main characters is revealed through the context of the story’s setting and events in the plot. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain how character development, setting, and plot interact in "The Gift of the Magi."
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore key story elements in the classic American short story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. Throughout this two-part tutorial, you'll analyze how important information about two main characters is revealed through the context of the story’s setting and events in the plot. By the end of this tutorial series, you should be able to explain how character development, setting, and plot interact in excerpts from this short story.
Make sure to complete both parts! Click HERE to view "How Story Elements Interact in 'The Gift of the Magi' -- Part Two."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Read more from the fantasy novel The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald in Part Two of this three-part series. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to compare and contrast the archetypes of two characters in the novel.
Make sure to complete all three parts of this series in order to compare and contrast the use of archetypes in two texts.
Click HERE to view "Archetypes -- Part One: Examining an Archetype in The Princess and the Goblin."
Click HERE to view "Archetypes -- Part Three: Comparing and Contrasting Archetypes in Two Fantasy Stories."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to determine the important traits of a main character named Princess Irene in excerpts from the fantasy novel The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll also identify her archetype and explain how textual details about her character support her archetype.
Make sure to complete all three parts of this series in order to compare and contrast the use of archetypes in two texts.
Click HERE to view "Archetypes -- Part Two: Examining Archetypes in The Princess and the Goblin."
Click HERE to view "Archetypes -- Part Three: Comparing and Contrasting Archetypes in Two Fantasy Stories."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify aspects of setting and character as you analyze several excerpts from “The Yellow Wallpaper," a chilling short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that explores the impact on its narrator of being confined to mostly one room. You'll also determine how the narrator’s descriptions of the story’s setting better reveal her emotional and mental state.
This interactive tutorial is Part One in a two-part series. By the end of Part Two, you should be able to explain how the narrator changes through her interaction with the setting. Click below to launch Part Two.
The Power to Cure or Impair: The Importance of Setting in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' -- Part Two
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to examine several excerpts from the chilling short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which explores the impact on its narrator of being confined to mostly one room. In Part Two of this tutorial series, you'll determine how the narrator’s descriptions of the story’s setting reveal its impact on her emotional and mental state. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain how the narrator changes through her interaction with the setting.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to launch "The Power to Cure or Impair: The Importance of Setting in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' -- Part One."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the mysterious poem “The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson in this interactive tutorial. As you explore the poem's message about the past, you’ll identify the features of a villanelle in the poem. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain how the form of a villanelle contributes to the poem's meaning.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to explore the significance of the famous poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, lines from which are engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
In Part Two of this two-part series, you’ll identify the features of a sonnet in the poem "The New Colossus." By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain how the form of a sonnet contributes to the poem's meaning.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two.
Click HERE to launch "A Giant of Size and Power -- Part One: Exploring the Significance of 'The New Colossus.'"
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to examine how setting influences characters in excerpts from The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 2 in a two-part series. Make sure to complete Part One first. Click HERE to launch "Analyzing the Beginning of The Red Umbrella -- Part One: How Setting Influences Events."
Type: Original Student Tutorial
In Part One, explore the significance of the famous poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, lines from which are engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
This famous poem also happens to be in the form of a sonnet. In Part Two of this two-part series, you’ll identify the features of a sonnet in the poem. By the end of this tutorial series, you should be able to explain how the form of a sonnet contributes to the poem's meaning. Make sure to complete both parts!
Click HERE to launch "A Giant of Size and Power -- Part Two: How the Form of a Sonnet Contributes to Meaning in 'The New Colossus.'"
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the beginning of the historical fiction novel The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez in this two-part series. In Part One, you'll examine how setting influences events. In Part Two, you'll examine how setting influences characters.
Make sure to complete both parts! Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the impacts on sea turtles, humans, and the economy when we live, work, and play at the beach with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
This SaM-1 video provides the students with the optional "twist" for Lesson 17 and the Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) they have been working on in the Grade 3 Physical Science Unit: Water Beach Vacation.
To see all the lessons in the unit please visit https://www.cpalms.org/page818.aspx.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
This video introduces the students to a Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) and concepts related to conducting experiments so they can apply what they learned about the changes water undergoes when it changes state. This MEA provides students with an opportunity to develop a procedure based on evidence for selecting the most effective cooler.
This SaM-1 video is to be used with lesson 14 in the Grade 3 Physical Science Unit: Water Beach Vacation. To see all the lessons in the unit please visit https://www.cpalms.org/page818.aspx.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the cerebrum and the cerebellum--the seats of thoughts and emotions in the human brain. You'll also learn about their functions and how they are surrounded and protected by the meninges..
This interactive tutorial is part 3 in a three-part series about the human brain. Click below to open other tutorials in this series.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the hypothalamus and the thalamus, two regions in the center of the human brain that are among the areas responsible for constantly controlling mechanisms that we are hardly aware of, such as keeping our body temperature stable.
This interactive tutorial is part 2 in a three-part series about the human brain. Click below to continue this series.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the three components that make up the brainstem of the human brain, including their specific functions and how the brainstem relates to the brain and the rest of the body.
This interactive tutorial is part 1 in a three-part series about the human brain. Click below to continue this series.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how scientists measure viral spread and use this information to make recommendations for the public in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify different sources of scientific claims and to evaluate their reliability in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to test scientific claims and judge competing hypotheses by understanding how they can be tested against one another in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" and examine words, phrases, and lines with multiple meanings. In this interactive tutorial, you'll analyze how these multiple meanings can affect a reader’s interpretation of the poem.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine the topics of transformation and perfection as you read excerpts from the “Myth of Pygmalion” by Ovid and the short story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. By the end of this two-part interactive tutorial series, you should be able to explain how the short story draws on and transforms source material from the original myth.
This tutorial is the second in a two-part series. Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine the topics of transformation and perfection as you read excerpts from the “Myth of Pygmalion” by Ovid and the short story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. By the end of this two-part interactive tutorial series, you should be able to explain how the short story draws on and transforms source material from the original myth.
This tutorial is the first in a two-part series. Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about that dreaded word--plagiarism--in this interactive tutorial that's all about citing your sources, creating a Works Cited page, and avoiding academic dishonesty!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about that dreaded word--plagiarism--in this interactive tutorial that's all about citing your sources and avoiding academic dishonesty!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" in this two-part series. This tutorial is Part Two. In this tutorial, you will continue to examine excerpts from Emerson's essay that focus on the topic of traveling. You'll examine word meanings and determine the connotations of specific words. You will also analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of this portion of the essay.
Make sure to complete Part One first. Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" in this two-part interactive tutorial series. You will examine word meanings, examine subtle differences between words with similar meanings, and think about the emotions or associations that are connected to specific words. Finally, you will analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of these excerpts.
Make sure to complete both parts! Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" in this interactive two-part tutorial. This tutorial is Part Two. In this two-part series, you will learn to enhance your experience of Emerson's essay by analyzing his use of the word "genius." You will analyze Emerson's figurative meaning of "genius" and how he develops and refines the meaning of this word over the course of the essay.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to view Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" in this interactive two-part tutorial. In Part One, you’ll learn to enhance your experience of a text by analyzing its use of a word’s figurative meaning. Specifically, you'll examine Emerson's figurative meaning of the key term "genius." In Part Two, you’ll learn how to track the development of a word’s figurative meaning over the course of a text.
Make sure to complete both parts of the tutorial! Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Genetic mutations can cause illness. Learn how genetic diseases can affect you and your communities in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Dive into genetic mutations and learn how they can alter the phenotypes of organisms.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explores how vaccines and antibiotics provide an extra level of protection from infectious agents and pathogens.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about asexual and sexual reproduction of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 2 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how the expression of genes is affected our environment, including lifestyle choices. In this interactive tutorial, you'll also explore how a combination of genes and environmental factors can impact the risk of multifactorial disease.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Follow the life of a cell in the tightly controlled process called the cell cycle! In this interactive tutorial, you will learn how a single cell gives rise to two identical daughter cells during the cell cycle and mitosis.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice analyzing word choices in "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, including word meanings, subtle differences between words with similar meanings, and emotions connected to specific words. In this interactive tutorial, you will also analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of the poem.
This is Part Two of a two-part series. Part One should be completed before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to open Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice analyzing word choices in "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe in this interactive tutorial. In this tutorial, you will examine word meanings, examine subtle differences between words with similar meanings, and think about emotions connected to specific words. You will also analyze the impact of specific word choices on the meaning of the poem.
This tutorial is Part One of a two-part series on Poe's "The Raven." Click HERE to open Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the steps of mitosis and cell division in this interactive tutorial, and see how they result in the separation of a cell's genetic material and division of its contents into two identical daughter cells.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
See how non-native species can impact ecosystem biodiversity to create problems for native species in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to create a Poem in 2 Voices in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is Part Three of a three-part series. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Poem in 2 Voices using evidence drawn from a literary text: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
You should complete Part One and Part Two of this series before beginning Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part One. Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Get ready to travel back in time to London, England during the Victorian era in this interactive tutorial that uses text excerpts from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This tutorial is Part Two of a three-part series. You should complete Part One before beginning this tutorial. In Part Two, you will read excerpts from the last half of the story and practice citing evidence to support analysis of a literary text. In the third tutorial in this series, you’ll learn how to create a Poem in 2 Voices using evidence from this story.
Make sure to complete all three parts! Click to HERE launch Part One. Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how authors create mood in a story through this interactive tutorial. You'll read a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury and analyze how he uses images, sound, dialogue, setting, and characters' actions to create different moods. This tutorial is Part One in a two-part series. In Part Two, you'll use Bradbury's story to help you create a Found Poem that conveys multiple moods.
When you've completed Part One, click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice writing different aspects of an expository essay about scientists using drones to research glaciers in Peru. This interactive tutorial is part four of a four-part series. In this final tutorial, you will learn about the elements of a body paragraph. You will also create a body paragraph with supporting evidence. Finally, you will learn about the elements of a conclusion and practice creating a “gift.”
This tutorial is part four of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore three conditions required for natural selection and see how these conditions lead to allele frequency shifts in a population.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice citing evidence to support analysis of a literary text as you read excerpts from one of the most famous works of horror fiction of all time, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This tutorial is Part One of a three-part tutorial. In Part Two, you'll continue your analysis of the text. In Part Three, you'll learn how to create a Poem in 2 Voices using evidence from this story. Make sure to complete all three parts!
Click HERE to launch Part Two. Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to write an introduction for an expository essay in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is the third part of a four-part series. In previous tutorials in this series, students analyzed an informational text and video about scientists using drones to explore glaciers in Peru. Students also determined the central idea and important details of the text and wrote an effective summary. In part three, you'll learn how to write an introduction for an expository essay about the scientists' research.
This tutorial is part three of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the basic characteristics and structures of fungi in Part 1 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the nutrition and mutualistic relationships of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 3 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify the central idea and important details of a text, as well as how to write an effective summary in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is the second tutorial in a four-part series that examines how scientists are using drones to explore glaciers in Peru.
This tutorial is part two of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the genetic advantage of sexual reproduction, describe the basic anatomy and physiology of both the male and female human reproductive systems, describe the process of human development leading up to birth, and identify major changes associated with each trimester of pregnancy.
This interactive tutorial is part 1 in a two-part series. Click here to
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the process of human development leading up to birth, and identify major changes associated with each trimester of pregnancy.
This interactive tutorial is part 2 in a two-part series. Click here to launch .
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about how researchers are using drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, to study glaciers in Peru. In this interactive tutorial, you will practice citing text evidence when answering questions about a text.
This tutorial is part one of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
- Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
- Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Pathogens of all sorts can make us sick. Learn the whats, whys, and hows of the process in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to avoid plagiarism in this interactive tutorial. You will also learn how to follow a standard format for citation and how to format your research paper using MLA style. Along the way, you will also learn about master magician Harry Houdini. This tutorial is Part Two of a two-part series on research writing.
Be sure to complete Part One first. Click to view Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine migration and factors affecting both population sizes and distributions of key species in the Kenyan savannah with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how living organisms can be organized into food webs and how energy is transferred through a food web from producers to consumers to decomposers. This interactive tutorial also includes interactive knowledge checks.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about paraphrasing and the use of direct quotes in this interactive tutorial about research writing. Along the way, you'll also learn about master magician Harry Houdini. This tutorial is part one of a two-part series, so be sure to complete both parts.
Check out part two—Avoiding Plaigiarism: It's Not Magic here.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine how genetic identification is aiding marine biologists studying organisms in deep ocean regions. This interactive tutorial also features a CPALMS Perspectives video.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to create a Found Poem with changing moods in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is Part Two of a two-part series. In Part One, students read “Zero Hour,” a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury and examined how he used various literary devices to create changing moods. In Part Two, students will use words and phrases from “Zero Hour” to create a Found Poem with two of the same moods from Bradbury's story.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the basic molecular structures and primary functions of carbohydrates with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 2 in a five-part series. Click below to explore other tutorials in the series.
- The Macromolecules of Life: Lipids
- The Macromolecules of Life: Proteins
- The Macromolecules of Life: Nucleic Acids
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Cite text evidence and make inferences about the "real" history of Halloween in this spooky interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore consequences and challenges of reproductive strategies of sea anemones.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to distinguish between public health issues and individual health issues in this interactive tutorial.
This is part 1 of 4 in a series of tutorials addressing this standard.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about that dreaded word--plagiarism--in this interactive tutorial that's all about citing your sources and avoiding academic dishonesty!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore species interdependence focusing on roles played by periphyton in the Everglades ecosystem with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how you can use a microscope as a tool to measure objects in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
See how data are interpreted to better understand the reproductive strategies taken by sea anemones with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore mechanisms of evolutionary change other than natural selection such as mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Examine field sampling strategies used to gather data and avoid bias in ecology research. This interactive tutorial features the CPALMS Perspectives video .
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to cite evidence and draw inferences in this interactive tutorial. Using an informational text about cyber attacks, you'll practice identifying text evidence and making inferences based on the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to define and identify claims being made within a text. This tutorial will also show you how evidence can be used effectively to support the claim being made. Lastly, this tutorial will help you write strong, convincing claims of your own.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify explicit textual evidence and make inferences based on the text. In this interactive tutorial, you'll sharpen your analysis skills while reading about the famed American explorers, Lewis and Clark, and their trusted companion, Sacagawea. You'll practice analyzing the explicit textual evidence wihtin the text, and you'll also make your own inferences based on the available evidence.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn strategies to help you solve genetics problems by applying your knowledge of inheritance patterns. You’ll encounter a few “mystery cases” that you’ll solve through your genetics analysis in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the basic molecular structures and primary functions of lipids with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 3 in a five-part series. Click below to explore other tutorials in the series.
- The Macromolecules of Life: Carbohydrates
- The Macromolecules of Life: Proteins
- The Macromolecules of Life: Nucleic Acids
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how individual and societal choices affect sustainability and explore ways that you can reduce your impact on the environment with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the first step of protein synthesis, transcription of DNA to RNA. In this interactive tutorial, you'll explore epigenetics as a mechanism to activate or inactivate gene expression.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the mystery of muscle cell metabolism and how cells are able to meet the need for a constant supply of energy. In this interactive tutorial, you'll identify the basic structure of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), explain how ATP’s structure is related it its job in the cell, and connect this role to energy transfers in living things.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
At any instant in your life, millions and millions of enzymes are hard at work in your body as well as all around you making your life easier!
By the end of this tutorial you should be able to describe how enzymes speed up most biochemical reactions as well as identify the various factors that affect enzyme activity like pH and temperature.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn the definition of "sustainability" and understand how our throw away consumer lifestyle has affected the environment in a negative way. In this interactive tutorial, you'll explore possible solutions to prevent further harm to the environment.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify and analyze extended metaphors using W.B. Yeats' poem, "The Stolen Child." In this interactive tutorial, we'll examine how Yeats uses figurative language to express the extended metaphor throughout this poem. We'll focus on his use of these seven types of imagery: visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, and organic. Finally, we'll analyze how the poem's extended metaphor conveys a deeper meaning within the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to classify cells as prokaryotic or eukaryotic and distinguish eukaryotic cells as plant or animal with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Compare and contrast mitosis and meiosis in this interactive tutorial. You'll also relate them to the processes of sexual and asexual reproduction and their consequences for genetic variation.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the basic processes of transcription and translation, and how they result in the expression of genes as you complete this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Describe the conditions required for natural selection and tell how it can result in changes in species over time. In this interactive tutorial, follow Charles Darwin through a life of exploration, observation, and experimentation to see how he developed his ideas.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the basic molecular structures and primary functions of proteins with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 4 in a five-part series. Click below to explore other tutorials in the series.
- The Macromolecules of Life: Carbohydrates
- The Macromolecules of Life: Lipids
- The Macromolecules of Life: Nucleic Acids
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify and analyze the central idea of an informational text. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read several informational passages about the history of pirates. First, you'll learn the four-step process for pinpointing the central idea. Then you'll analyze each passage to see how the central idea is developed throughout the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text.
You should be able to explain how different types of scientific evidence support the theory of evolution, including direct observation, fossils, DNA, biogeography, and comparative anatomy and embryology.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify and describe the leading scientific explanations of the origin of life on Earth.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn what scientific laws and scientific theories are and how they are different from what we commonly call laws and theories outside of science with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore how environmental changes at different time scales affect living organisms within ecosystems in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore how organisms gain usable energy and compare the two types of cellular respiration; aerobic and anaerobic. In this interactive tutorial, you'll also learn about reactants and products of both aerobic and anaerobic respiration.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to make inferences based on the information included in the text in this interactive tutorial. Using the short story "The Last Leaf" by O. Henry, you'll practice identifying both the explicit and implicit information in the story. You'll apply your own reasoning to make inferences based on what is stated both explicitly and implicitly in the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about factors that affect the blood flow in your body in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Join Baby Bear to answer questions about key details in his favorite stories with this interactive tutorial. Learn about characters, setting, and events as you answer who, where, and what questions.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how DNA is copied and explain how this process allows cells to have identical genetic information with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will practice identifying relevant evidence within a text as you read excerpts from Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire." Then, you'll practice your writing skills as you draft a short response using examples of relevant evidence from the story.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore how cells use ATP as an energy source for cellular activities in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the function of the cell membrane as a selective barrier that moves material into and out of the cell to maintain homeostasis with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to make inferences using the novel Hoot in this interactive tutorial. You'll learn how to identify both explicit and implicit information in the story to make inferences about characters and events.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify and describe the structural and functional features of nucleic acids, one of the 4 primary macromolecule groups in biological systems, with this interactive tutorial.
This is Part 3 in 5-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in the series:
- Macromolecules: Carbohydrates
- Macromolecules: Nucleic Acids
- Macromolecules: Lipids
- Macromolecules: Proteins
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to describe Meiosis, the process by which sex cells--the sperm and the egg--are created in living things. In this interactive tutorial, you will also discover how sexual reproduction results in genetically diverse offspring.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to make inferences when reading a fictional text using the textual evidence provided. In this tutorial, you'll read the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. You'll practice identifying what is directly stated in the text and what requires the use of inference. You'll practice making your own inferences and supporting them with evidence from the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text and demonstrate how and why scientific inferences are drawn from scientific observation and be able to identify examples in biology.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn that a scientific theory is the culmination of many experiments and supplies the most powerful explanation that scientists have to offer with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the relationship between mutations, the cell cycle, and uncontrolled cell growth which may result in cancer with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore population interactions and how those interactions can affect population size in this interactive tutorial. You'll also learn about competition, predation and symbiosis.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how living organisms are classified according to their characteristics, which reflects their evolutionary history and relationships, as you complete this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to determine differences and similarities of the structure and function of compound light microscopes, dissecting microscopes, scanning electron microscopes and transmitting electron microscopes.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to explain how a phylogenetic tree, or cladogram, is used to classify living organisms based on inherited similarities, and how it relates to other methods of hierarchical classification.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to define what science is and what it is not. In this interactive tutorial, you will identify why certain ways of exploring the universe can and cannot be considered scientific practices.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify the four basic biological macromolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids) by structure and function with this interactive tutorial.
This is part 1 in a five-part series. Click below to explore other tutorials in the series.
- The Macromolecules of Life: Lipids
- The Macromolecules of Life: Proteins
- The Macromolecules of Life: Nucleic Acids
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how the chemical properties of water relate to its physical properties and make it essential for life with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to explain differences in genetic and non-genetic classification methods. You should also know why genetic evidence is very powerful for understanding evolutionary relationships among organisms.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn the basics of inheritance in this interactive tutorial. You discover how to differentiate between polygenic and multiple alleles, predict genetic outcomes using a Punnett square, and analyze inheritance patterns caused by various modes of inheritances including codominant, incomplete dominance, sex-linked, polygenic, and multiple alleles.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify and describe the role of all of the major molecules needed for photosynthesis. You'll also be able to explain the role that photosynthesis plays in capturing carbon from the atmosphere to produce sugars.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the characteristics of domains and kingdoms used to classify living organisms with this interactive tutorial. You also will learn more about the reasons behind how and why this classification is done.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to distinguish between questions that can be answered by science and questions that science cannot answer. This interactive tutorial will help you distinguish between science and other ways of knowing, including art, religion, and philosophy.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about the structure, function, and evolutionary origins of plant tissues and organs with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how the distribution of aquatic life forms is affected by light, temperature, and salinity with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to better understand the composition of DNA, the purpose of the information in DNA, why the DNA sequence is considered a universal code, and what might happen if mistakes appear in the code with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify and define types of biotechnology and consider the impacts of biotechnologies on the individual, society and the environment in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify basic trends in the evolutionary history of humans, including walking upright, brain size, jaw size, and tool use in "Climbing Around the Hominin Family Tree" online tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about photosynthesis and cellular respiration. In this interactive tutorial, you will gain awareness of the connections between these two very important processes with regard to energy and carbon.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify the basic functions of the immune system. You will also be able to distinguish between nonspecific and specific immune responses.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to name the major regions of the brain and identify them on a diagram with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore green chemistry and what it means to be benign by design in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
In Part Two of this two-part series, you'll continue to explore excerpts from the Romantic novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. In this tutorial, you'll examine the author's use of juxtaposition, which is a technique of putting two or more elements side by side to invite comparison or contrast. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain how the author’s use of juxtaposition in excerpts from the first two chapters of Jane Eyre defines Jane’s perspective regarding her treatment in the Reed household.
Make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Click HERE to view Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Dive deeper into the famous short story “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov and explore the impact of a fifteen-year bet made between a lawyer and a banker.
In Part Three, you’ll learn about universal themes and explain how a specific universal theme is developed throughout “The Bet.”
Make sure to complete the first two parts in the series before beginning Part three. Click HERE to view Part One. Click HERE to view Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Educational Games
The Control of the Cell Cycle educational game is based on the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded for discoveries concerning the control of the cell cycle.
Type: Educational Game
The software application, which allows the students to simulate natural selection in a population of dots, goes along with a tutorial which is also at this site.
Type: Educational Game
Students attempt to save towns from damage prior to the arrival of several different natural disasters. Students will learn the importance of early prevention and actions to protect others, themselves and their property when faced with a natural disaster. Certain disasters are more appropriate for particular grade levels. Each scenario takes between 20 and 45 minutes to play, depending on the disaster for which your students are trying to prepare. There are five scenarios available, hurricane, tsunami, flood, earthquake, and wildfire. Each scenario can be played on easy, medium or hard difficulty levels. As with life, there are no "perfect solutions" to each scenario and no "perfect score", so students can play multiple times and the scenarios will still be slightly different.These simulation are part of a larger website that provides multiple links for natural disasters.
Type: Educational Game
Type: Educational Game
This cell structure crossword puzzle uses vocabulary from CELLS alive! If you have trouble and need a hint, use the "Search this Site" engine in the lefthand menu. Good Luck!
Type: Educational Game
Lesson Plans
In this lesson plan, students will explore the history and meaning behind various patriotic holidays and make personal connections with those holidays including, Constitution Day, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, Patriot Day, President’s Day, Independence Day, and Medal of Honor Day.
Type: Lesson Plan
This lesson introduces students to complex systems and to basic concepts from the field of system dynamics that lie at the heart of systems thinking. These concepts include stocks and flows, feedback loops, unintended consequences, and the basic principle that the behavior of complex systems can best be understood by looking at the system as a whole, and specifically by analyzing the system’s underlying structure. The lesson introduces these topics through an immersion in (and a role-play simulation of) the dynamics of urban recycling systems, many of which have been thrown into crisis in the past two years. Through this current-affairs example of complex systems in crisis, we identify some key structural features that help to explain how these systems behave over time. We also discover how well-intentioned action can cause negative unintended consequences when we try to intervene in a complex system without understanding how it operates.
Type: Lesson Plan
This BLOSSOMS lesson discusses Carbon Dioxide, and its impact on climate change. The main learning objective is for students to become more familiar with human production of Carbon Dioxide gas, as well as to gain an awareness of the potential for this gas to effect the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere. This lesson should take about an hour to complete. In order to complete the lesson, the teacher will need: printed copies of signs representing the different products and processes that take place in the carbon cycle (included), samples of matter that represent those products, handouts for the students to create a graphic of the carbon cycle (included) and graph paper or graphing software for students to create graphs. In the breaks of this BLOSSOMS lesson, students will be creating models of the carbon cycle as well as observing experiments and analyzing data from them. It is hoped that this lesson will familiarize students with ways in which carbon moves through our environment and provide them with some personal connection to the impact that an increased concentration of CO2 can have on air temperature. The goal is to spark their interest and hopefully to encourage them to ask and investigate more questions about the climate.
Type: Lesson Plan
In this lesson students will see the different types of evidence scientists use to understand evolutionary relationships among organisms. They will first practice by using shared physical characteristics to predict relationships among members of the cat family and then use this approach to predict primate relationships. They will compare their predictions to evidence provided by analyzing amino acid sequences and build a phylogenetic tree based on these sequences. Finally, they will look at the tree in the context of time in order to see divergence times.
Type: Lesson Plan
Learning objectives: Students will learn what DNA fingerprinting is, what it is used for, and how it is used in paternity testing and forensics. Students will see how this technique actually works in lab. Students will learn how to analyze the gels used in this technique to match babies to parents, and crime scene evidence to suspects.
Type: Lesson Plan
Perspectives Video: Experts
A cell has made a protein; now what? Learn more about protein secretion!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Advances in "big data" are leading to rapid developments in personalized medicine. Learn more!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Check this out and learn about how prokaryotes and eukaryotes regulate gene expression.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
How do you know what genes are thinking? By their expression. Learn more from a plant geneticist.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Mutations don't just happen to comic book heroes and villains. Learn more about this natural biological phenomenon!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Sometimes the cell cycle gets derailed a bit, which can lead to the development of tumors. Learn more about mutations!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Humans impact the environment in a number of ways. Learn more about how we interact with nature!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Learn all the information about coral and corral that knowledge!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
What's in a molecular biologist's toolbox? Very small tools for working with cellular machines and molecules!
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
This plant geneticist wants to propagate knowledge about different kinds of plant propagation.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Your understanding of agriscience will bloom and grow as this plant geneticist describes how they use mitosis and meiosis when developing new grape varieties.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
This biologist will brighten your day with a discussion on colorful (or not) ways that marine organisms have adapted to ocean lighting.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
This video is a natural selection for learning about evolution.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Interested in how evolution happens? Drift into this video and go with the flow.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Humans aren't the only ones who get their fingerprints taken. Learn how this scientist is like a crime scene investigator using oil "fingerprints" to explain the orgins of spilled oil.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
A NASA botanist explains how studying photosynthesis now can help feed astronauts in the future.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Sink into science as a biologist floats a few thoughts about physiological adaptations marine animals use to stay at the right depth.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Lionfish and other species are roaring past our native populations. Learn more.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Watch as this scientist shines a light on a type of pollution that affects sea turtles.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
<p>A plant geneticist describes observable inheritance patterns and genetic mutations in maize.</p>
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
A viticulture scientist explains grape expectations for medicine and society.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Expert
Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiasts
Why can't you put Ethanol fuel in a boat motor?
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
<p>You'll need to bring your computer skills and math knowledge to estimate oil volume and rate as it seeps from the ocean floor. Dive in!</p>
Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
Landfills have a come a long way! Explore modern techniques for managing our environmental impact through responsible waste disposal.
Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.
Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
Presentation/Slideshows
This presentation, a narrated PowerPoint, provides detailed information regarding photosynthesis and cellular respiration. It is provided by a teacher for his students, but is well-done and engaging enough to be useful for other students.
Type: Presentation/Slideshow
It is often difficult, sometimes impossible, to get a definitive answer to some of life's most enduring questions. Scientific processes provide alternative explanations for a wide variety of phenomena by piecing together all the available information. This interactive activity on the Evolution website explores four possible hypotheses to explain what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, inviting the viewer to consider the evidence and come to their own decision.
Type: Presentation/Slideshow
A PowerPoint with speaker notes covering infectious diseases, causes, transmission, and control.
Type: Presentation/Slideshow
Student Center Activity
In this problem set, multiple choice problems are displayed one at a time. If students answer correctly, they are shown a short explanation. If their answer is incorrect, a tutorial will follow, and the students will be given another chance to answer.
Type: Student Center Activity
Text Resources
This website is a good resource for reviewing the basics of the study of genetics. It conveniently lists and describes common genetic disorders, and describes procedure for setting up a medical family tree.
Type: Text Resource
This site from the National Academy of Sciences presents uses, sources, costs, and efficiency of energy.
Type: Text Resource
Using this case study students can discuss "How can an employee"s behaviors and actions drive their career stability and path?"
Type: Text Resource
Using this case study, students can answer the question, "What are the limits of fair use regarding copyright protection?"
Type: Text Resource
Using this case study, students can answer the question, "How does the composition of a scene influence how the viewer feels?"
Type: Text Resource
Tutorials
Type: Tutorial
Type: Tutorial
In this Khan Academy video tutorial, learn the main important arteries in the brain that bring necessary oxygen to all parts of the brain.
Type: Tutorial
Learn about the complications that may occur after a heart attack (myocardial infarction).
Type: Tutorial
In this Khan academy video tutorial, learn about the possible treatments and interventions of different types of strokes.
Type: Tutorial
Learn about the process your body goes through in healing after a heart attack (myocardial infarction).
Type: Tutorial
A vaccine allows a person to develop acquired immunity against an illness without actually getting the disease. This interactive tutorial will help the learners to understand the process by which vaccines work in the human body.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial is a step by step explanation of what occurs in photosynthesis during the Calvin Cycle. It describes and uses visuals for the chemical reactions in this biochemical pathway. This challenging tutorial addresses the standard at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial shows and describes what occurs during the light reactions of photosynthesis which is the first stage of photosynthesis when plants capture and store energy from sunlight. In this process, light energy is converted into chemical energy, in the form of the energy-carrying molecules ATP and NADPH.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how oxidation and reduction reactions occur in cellular respiration. The chemical equation for cellular respiration is examined and broken down to show where each type of the reactions occur.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how CAM plants fix carbon dioxide at night so they do not lose water by opening their stomata during the day.
Type: Tutorial
The Khan Academy video discusses how some plants avoid photorespiration by fixing carbon in the bundle sheath cells instead of the mesophylll cells.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video reviews the Calvin Cycle in C3 photosynthesis and discusses the reactants and products of this process. The video then describes photorespiration which is what occurs when the enzyme RuBisCO fixes oxygen instead of carbon dioxide and explains why this is considered an inefficient pathway for plants.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video discusses the science of taxonomy and where humans fit into the tree of life.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains the definition of species and provides examples of animals that belong to the same species.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains and demonstrates how to use Punnett Squares for monohybrid crosses and dihybrid crosses. The video also shows how to use Punnett Squares for inheritance patterns such as codominance, incomplete dominance, and multiple alleles.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video reviews the basic processes of DNA replication and protein synthesis. It then goes on to explain how the terms chromosome, chromatin, and chromatid, relate to each other.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes what happens to a zygote as it becomes an embyro. It further explains what a stem cell is and discusses why there are questions concerning the use of stem cells.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how variation can be introduced into a species and the importance of sexual reproduction in this process.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how cytotoxic t cells get activated by MHC-I antigen complexes and then proceed to kill infected cells. This video addresses the concept at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video discusses helper t cells in the immune system. The role of helper t cells in activating b cells is detailed. This challenging tutorial addresses the concept at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video briefly describes DNA replication and then goes into a thorough explanation of both transcription and translation.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes the structure of the molecule DNA in great detail. It also discuses the role DNA plays in the process of protein synthesis, explaining transcription and translation. The video discusses the relationship between DNA and chromosomes as well.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how ATP is generated in the electron transport chain through the process of oxidative phosphorylation and chemiosmosis. It also explains the differences between oxidative phosphorylation and substrate level phosphorylation.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how the NADH And FADH2 that were made during glycolysis and the Kreb's Cycle are used to generate ATP through the electron transport chain.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial describes in detail the process of glucose being broken down into pyruvate during glycolysis. Glycolysis is the first biochemical pathway of cellular respiration.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes how the pyruvate produced in glycolysis undergoes oxidation to produce Acetyl CoA. The video then explains what occurs when Acetyl CoA enters the Kreb's cycle and how NADH and FADH2 are produced.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes B lymphocyte cells, and how they are activated and produce antibodies within the immune system.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes non specific immunity, and the specific role of phagocytes. The tutorial explains how phagocytes engulf pathogens that enter the body as a line of defense.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video contains an overview of the types of immune responses in the body. The differences between humoral adaptive immunity and cell mediated immunity are discussed in detail.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial explains how the owl butterfly might have evolved the spots on its wings through natural selection.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial addresses the differences between the X and Y chromosomes in humans. The SRY gene found on the Y chromosome is discussed and the genes that cause color-blindness and hemophilia on the X chromosome are discussed.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial explains in detail the process of the light reactions of photosynthesis including the importance of the thylakoid membrane and the products that are produced from this reaction.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial explains how the by-products from the light reactions of photosynthesis are used to produce sugar molecules in the Calvin Cycle.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the differences and similarities between meiosis and mitosis.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the three unique features of meiosis and how meiosis is related to genetic inheritance.
Type: Tutorial
DNA sequencing is a technique for determining the complete sequence of bases (As, Ts, Gs, and Cs) for a particular piece of DNA. Sequencing is relatively time consuming, as the process must be done to fairly short lengths of DNA at a time. This tutorial will help you to understand the process of DNA sequencing.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains the major vessels involved in the flow of blood and follows the steps that blood takes as it travels through the heart.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial guides you through the processes of diffusion and osmosis while explaining the vocabulary and terminology involved in detail.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial addresses the importance of the phospholipid bilayer in the structure of the cell membrane. The types of molecules that can diffuse through the cell membrane are also discussed.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy tutorial describes the differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. It then goes on to discuss in detail the structures and their functions found in the eukaryotic cell.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video explains how the molecule ATP stores the energy needed for biological systems within organisms.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video describes how energy is extracted from the glucose molecule to make ATP. Each biochemical pathway involved in cellular respiration is discussed.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand how a concentration gradient across a membrane is used. When a molecule or an ion is moved across a membrane from an area of low concentration to an area of high concentration then a gradient is generated. This gradient can be chemical or it can also create a difference in electrical charge across the membrane if ions are involved. The proton pump generates an electrical and chemical gradient that can be used to create ATP which can drive a large number of different biochemical reactions.
Type: Tutorial
Students will learn about the different types of proteins found in the cell membrane while viewing this Khan Academy tutorial video.
Type: Tutorial
This introduction to viruses by the Khan Academy addresses the question: Are viruses alive? How viruses enter cells and replicate is discussed in detail.
Type: Tutorial
This video from the Khan Academy introduces the symbiotic relationship between the many bacteria that live inside the human body. The basics of bacteria structure, reproduction, and bacterial infections are discussed.
Type: Tutorial
This animation shows the process of glycolysis. The reactants, products, and the basic functions of aerobic and anaerobic cellular respiration are identified.
Type: Tutorial
This Khan Academy video discusses the basics of cancer. The relationship between mutation, the cell cycle and uncontolled cell growth is explained.
Type: Tutorial
Photosynthesis is often described as the reverse of cellular respiration. Respiration breaks down complex molecules to release energy that is used to make ATP. Photosynthesis takes energy from photons and uses it to build complex molecules. However both systems use an electron transport chain and associated proton pump and ATP synthase as a key part of the process. This tutorial will help you to understand the electron transport chain and ATP synthesis.
Type: Tutorial
Gene transcription is controlled by multiple factors. Some proteins bind to DNA sequences and start the process of gene transcription. RNA synthesis can only occur when these activators are bound to specific DNA sequences. This tutorial will help you to understand the process of gene transcription.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the role that vitamins play in human nutrition. Vitamins interact with enzymes to allow them to function more effectively. Though vitamins are not consumed in metabolism, they are vital for the process of metabolism to occur.
This challenging tutorial addresses the concept at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
You will see how the genetic code, using the DNA alphabet A,T,C, and G, produces codons to specify the 20 known amino acids. Each codon consists of a three letter code producing 64 possible words which specify the amino acids and stop signals.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand how Mendel, the father of genetics, planned and crossed the pure-bred pea plant to understand the process of genetics. With the help of the animation, you should be able to understand how the alleles are transferred from one generation to another.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand that genes play an important role in determining physical traits. These traits helps us to identify the homozygous or heterozygous variety of genes. When the pair of genes are homozygous, they are known as pure bred, i.e they have two copies of the same gene for each trait. For heterozygous variety, they have different gene for each trait. Out of this pair, one will be dominant and other will be recessive.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help students understand how the immune system of vertebrates is characterized by acquired responses that are highly specific to particular antigens. This system has the advantage of having a cellular memory for previous infections.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the procedure of amplifying a single copy of DNA into millions of copies. Polymerase chain reaction is a molecular prototyping technique which helps in copying small segments of DNA into significant amounts required for molecular and genetic analyses.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand how allergies develop. Allergies are exaggerated immune responses caused by B cells producing excess IgE antibodies. An allergen (food, dust) is a foreign substance, which binds to the antibodies and triggers a reaction that includes the production of histamine.
This challenging tutorial addresses the concept at a very high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
One of the functions of the T-Cells in the immune system is to attack and destroy infected cells. Target cells are cells that have been attacked by a virus. When the target cells have been taken over by a virus and they do not have a good chance of surviving, they trigger their own death. This action reduces the chance that other nearby cells will become infected.
This challenging tutorial addresses the concept at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the function of phagocytes. Phagocytes are specialized cells that ingest and break down foreign material including bacteria and viruses.
This challenging tutorial addresses the concept at a high level of complexity.
Type: Tutorial
This online tutorial will help you to understand the process of regulated secretion. In regulated secretion, proteins are secreted from a cell in large amounts when a specific signal is detected by the cell. The specific example used in this tutorial is the release of insulin after a glucose signal enters a pancreatic beta cell.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand how all of the components of the heart are able to work together without direct control from the central nervous system. This video shows that for proper function of the heartbeat, it is necessary that all of the muscle fibers in a region contract in unison.
Type: Tutorial
T-cells perform a wide variety of functions in the immune system. In this tutorial you will understand the structure and function of the T-cells.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help you to understand the function of the follicle. Each follicle is a single egg cell surrounded by several layers of follicle cells. An ovary consists of many follicles. The follicle cells protect and nourish the egg prior to its release into the oviducts during ovulation.
Type: Tutorial
Blood pressure is determined by the force of the blood acting on the walls of the blood vessels. Two factors determine the size of this force. One is the volume of blood being pumped through the vessel. The other is the size of the vessels. Changes in blood pressure can be caused by either a change in the amount of blood being pumped or by a change in the size of the blood vessels. Feedback mechanisms, described in this animation, will alter heart rate and blood vessel dilation to maintain blood pressure at appropriate levels.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help students to understand how concentrations of gases in the blood change during breathing. This animation shows high carbon dioxide concentrations and low oxygen concentrations indicating that gas exchage is occurring at a slower than ideal rate. Because of this, heart rate increases or decreases to compensate the exchange of gas.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the student understand about viruses which are small infectious agents that replicate only inside the living cells of other organisms.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the learner visualize how a cell or single celled organism can differ in its view when looked at under different magnifications and different types of microscopes. This tutorial can be used by the teacher as an added resource for their lesson about different microscopes and how they work..
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial reviews the process of cellular respiration which is the set of metabolic reactions and processes that take place in the cells of organisms to convert biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial introduces the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which is a technique used in molecular biology to make multiple copies of a gene even when only small amounts of DNA are available.
Type: Tutorial
Photosynthesis is an essential part of the exchange between humans and plants. Amanda Ooten walks us through the process of photosynthesis, also discussing the relationship between photosynthesis and carbohydrates, starch, and fiber -- and how the air we breathe is related to the food we ingest.
Type: Tutorial
How do coral reef conservationists balance the environmental needs of the reefs with locals who need the reefs to survive? Joshua Drew draws on the islands of Fiji and their exemplary system of protection, called "connectivity", which also keep the needs of fishermen in mind.
Type: Tutorial
Water is both essential and unique. Many of its particular qualities stem from the fact that it consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, therefore creating an unequal sharing of electrons. From fish in frozen lakes to ice floating on water, Christina Kleinberg describes the effects of polarity.
Type: Tutorial
Your body is made of cells -- but how does a single cell know to become part of your nose, instead of your toes? The answer is in your body's instruction book: DNA. Joe Hanson compares DNA to a detailed manual for building a person out of cells -- with 46 chapters (chromosomes) and hundreds of thousands of pages covering every part of you.
Type: Tutorial
Every day, we are bombarded by attention grabbing headlines that promise miracle cures to all of our ailments -- often backed up by a "scientific study." But what are these studies, and how do we know if they are reliable? David H. Schwartz dissects two types of studies that scientists use, illuminating why you should always approach the claims with a critical eye.
Type: Tutorial
A hearty bowl of cereal gives you the energy to start your day, but how exactly did that energy make its way into your bowl? It all begins with photosynthesis, the process that converts the air we breathe into energizing glucose. Cathy Symington details the highly efficient second phase of photosynthesis -- called the Calvin cycle -- which converts carbon dioxide into sugar with some clever mix-and-match math.
Type: Tutorial
When you picture the lowest levels of the food chain, you might imagine herbivores happily munching on lush, living green plants. But this idyllic image leaves out a huge (and slightly less appetizing) source of nourishment: dead stuff. John C. Moore details the "brown food chain," explaining how such unlikely delicacies as pond scum and animal feces contribute enormous amounts of energy to our ecosystems.
Type: Tutorial
All living things are made of cells. In the human body, these highly efficient units are protected by layer upon layer of defense against icky invaders like the cold virus. Shannon Stiles takes a journey into the cell, introducing the microscopic arsenal of weapons and warriors that play a role in the battle for your health.
Type: Tutorial
This TED-ED original lesson explains the three common routes of metastasis. Cancer usually begins with one tumor in a specific area of the body. But if the tumor is not removed, cancer has the ability to spread to nearby organs as well as places far away from the origin, like the brain. How does cancer move to these new areas and why are some organs more likely to get infected than others? Ivan Seah Yu Jun explains the three common routes of metastasis.
Type: Tutorial
This short video describes the process of antibiotic resistance. Right now, you are inhabited by trillions of micro organisms. Many of these bacteria are harmless (or even helpful!), but there are a few strains of ‘super bacteria' that are pretty nasty -- and they're growing resistant to our antibiotics. Why is this happening? Kevin Wu details the evolution of this problem that presents a big challenge for the future of medicine.
Type: Tutorial
In the past decade, the US honeybee population has been decreasing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. While this is obviously bad news for honeypots everywhere, bees also help feed us in a bigger way -- by pollinating our nation's crops. Emma Bryce investigates potential causes for this widespread colony collapse disorder.
Type: Tutorial
Chemical reactions are constantly happening in your body -- even at this very moment. But what catalyzes these important reactions? This short video explains how enzymes assist the process, while providing a light-hearted way to remember how activation energy works.
Type: Tutorial
This short video opens up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing its beauty and complexity. Footage from the Plankton Chronicles Project is used to create a video designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.
Type: Tutorial
This TED ED original lesson takes a closer look at how the heart pumps blood. For most of history, scientists weren't quite sure why our hearts were beating or even what purpose they served. Eventually, we realized that these thumping organs serve the vital task of pumping clean blood throughout the body. But how? Edmond Hui investigates how it all works by taking a closer look at the heart's highly efficient ventricle system.
Type: Tutorial
How do cancer cells grow? How does chemotherapy fight cancer (and cause negative side effects)? The answers lie in cell division. George Zaidan explains how rapid cell division is cancer's "strength" -- and also its weakness.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the learners with their understanding of chemical structure of DNA.
Type: Tutorial
This lab simulation will allow you to explore how carbon circulates through the environment. Through data collection and analysis, you will experiment with the impact that humans are having on the cycling of carbon and make data based predictions on how these impacts may change environmental outcomes to the year 2100.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the learners to understand structure of DNA and how this structure allows for accurate replication.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the learners understand glycolysis, which is the process of enzymes breaking down glucose to release energy.
Type: Tutorial
The Krebs cycle is the central metabolic pathway in all aerobic organisms. This tutorial will help the learners understand the Krebs cycle.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help learners understand the process of DNA replication, including the enzymes involved. Learners will be able to recognize that an exact copy of DNA must be created prior to cell division.
Type: Tutorial
This tutorial will help the learners to learn about the anatomy of the cell. As the learners move the cursor over each cell organelle, they are shown information about that organelle's structure and function.
Type: Tutorial
This a mostly text resource that provides accurate, straight-forward descriptions of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses. It could be a great tool to help students compare and contrast organisms with each other and viruses, or a good review passage.
Type: Tutorial
This online tutorial is designed to help students understand the events that occur in process of meiosis.
Type: Tutorial
Video/Audio/Animations
With an often unexpected outcome from a simple experiment, students can discover the factors that cause and influence thermohaline circulation in our oceans. In two 45-minute class periods, students complete activities where they observe the melting of ice cubes in saltwater and freshwater, using basic materials: clear plastic cups, ice cubes, water, salt, food coloring, and thermometers. There are no prerequisites for this lesson but it is helpful if students are familiar with the concepts of density and buoyancy as well as the salinity of seawater. It is also helpful if students understand that dissolving salt in water will lower the freezing point of water. There are additional follow up investigations that help students appreciate and understand the importance of the ocean's influence on Earth's climate.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
In this video, research is presented describing scientific studies of marine fossils found in Arctic regions.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video presentation will help you to understand how HIV infects a cell and replicates itself using reverse transcriptase and the host's cellular machinery.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video presentation shows how the fetal brain grows during pregnancy, both in terms of its size and the number of neurons.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video presentation will help to understand the regeneration process in a zebrafish. When the zebrafish heart is damaged, the wound site is rapidly sealed with a fibrin clot that stems bleeding within seconds. Following clot formation, the tissue that surrounds the heart muscle, the epicardium, gradually covers the fibrin clot via migration and cell division. Over the next few months, new cardiac muscle is produced and replaces the clot.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This TED Ed video explains the mechanisms of evolutionary change: change in population size, sexual selection, mutation, gene flow, and natural selection.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
- Observe the photosynthesis mechanism in the plant
- Learn about the main chemical reactions that takes place during photosynthesis
- Learn how solar energy is converted into chemical energy
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
- An interactive exercise for using agarose gel electrophoresis for separating DNA molecules
- Explain how restriction endonucleases is used in restriction analysis of DNA
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
- Background on the discovery of the DNA double helix
- Contains an interactive activity for base pairing
- Contains an interactive activity for DNA extraction
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
- This activity provides a historical background about research related to bacterial analysis
- Contains an animation that shows how enzymes work on cutting DNA strands
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
- Background on tracking human ancestry using the alu marker
- Animation on polymerase chain reaction, PCR
- Interactive activity for performing PCR
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video examines the vocabulary essential for understanding the nature of science and evolution and illustrates how evolution is a powerful, well-supported scientific explanation for the relatedness of all life. A clear definition and description of scientific theory is given.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video discusses how bacteria spread and the pros and cons of bacteria.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
An introduction to what cancer is and how it is the by-product of broken DNA replication.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video describes the chromosomal basis for gender and sex-linked traits.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This video gives more detail on the light reaction and photophosphorylation that occur in photosynthesis.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
In this NSF video and reading selection evolutionary biologist and ecologist John Bishop documents the return of living things to Mount St. Helens after the largest landslide in recorded history. This is a rare opportunity for scientists to get to study a devastated area and how it comes back from scratch in such detail.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
In this National Science Foundation video and reading selection lab ecologist Janis Dickinson explains how she depends on citizen scientists to help her track the effects of disease, land-use change and environmental contaminants on the nesting success of birds.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This site has fantastic short Flash animations of intricate cell processes, including photosynthesis and the electron transport chain.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This simulation shows the spread of a favorable mutation through a population of pocket mice. Even a small selective advantage can lead to a rapid evolution of the population.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
This is a lesson about phenotypical variation within populations and how these differences are essential for biological evolution. Students will use a model organism (in this case, kidney beans) to explore variation patterns and subsequently connect these differences to artificial & natural selection. The NGSS’ CrossCutting Concepts and Science & Engineering Practices are embedded throughout the lesson.
The main learning objectives are:
- Using a model (kidney beans) to explore the natural variations within a population.
- Measuring differences between individuals in a population (population of beans).
- Describing how genetic/phenotypic variation is a key part of biological evolution because it is a prerequisite for natural selection.
- Demonstrating in which ways genetic variation is advantageous to a population because it enables some individuals to adapt to the environment while maintaining the survival of the population.
The NGSS Performance Expectations covered are HS-LS4-2. & HS-LS4-4.
Type: Video/Audio/Animation
Virtual Manipulatives
This tutorial explores the work of Gregor Mendel and his foundational genetics experiments with pea plants. It provides practice opportunities to check your understanding of inheritance patterns including single gene recessive traits and sex linked traits. The tutorial also covers more complex patterns of inheritance such those resulting from multiple alleles. Note: This resource is part of a larger collection of information regarding Genetics. Users may view information before and after the specific genetics components highlighted here.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
The split brain experiments revealed that the right and the left hemisphere in the brain are good at different things. For instance, the right hemisphere is good at space perception tasks and music while the left is good at verbal and analytic tasks. This game guides students through some examples of the split-brain phenomenon and how the differences are understood.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This educational game is about blood types, blood typing, and blood transfusions. Your challenge is to save patients in urgent need of blood transfusions. Your job is to decide what blood type these patients belong to in order to administer safe blood transfusions. At the end you will be evaluated: if you make no mistakes at all you will get all five blood drops.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This virtual manipulative will help the students to understand that osmosis is the movement of water molecules from an area of high concentration across a semipermeable membrane to an area of low concentration. This illustration of the diffusion process will help the students to understand the concept of osmotic pressure which is created by the movement of the water based on their concentration gradient and thus resulting in the difference of the solute concentration.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This virtual manipulative will allow you to explore what makes a reaction happen by colliding atoms and molecules. Design your own experiments with different reactions, concentrations, and temperatures. Recognize what affects the rate of a reaction.
Areas to Explore:
- Explain why and how a pinball shooter can be used to help understand ideas about reactions.
- Describe on a microscopic level what contributes to a successful reaction.
- Describe how the reaction coordinate can be used to predict whether a reaction will proceed or slow.
- Use the potential energy diagram to determine : The activation energy for the forward and reverse reactions; The difference in energy between reactants and products; The relative potential energies of the molecules at different positions on a reaction coordinate.
- Draw a potential energy diagram from the energies of reactants and products and activation energy.
- Predict how raising or lowering the temperature will affect a system in the equilibrium.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This activity will allow you to make colorful concentrated and dilute solutions and explore how much light they absorb and transmit using a virtual spectrophotometer.
You can explore concepts in many ways including:
- Describe the relationships between volume and amount of solute to solution concentration.
- Explain qualitatively the relationship between solution color and concentration.
- Predict and explain how solution concentration will change for adding or removing: water, solute, and/or solution.
- Calculate the concentration of solutions in units of molarity (mol/L).
- Design a procedure for creating a solution of a given concentration.
- Identify when a solution is saturated and predict how concentration will change for adding or removing: water, solute, and/or solution.
- Describe the relationship between the solution concentration and the intensity of light that is absorbed/transmitted.
- Describe the relationship between absorbance, molar absorptivity, path length, and concentration in Beer's Law.
- Predict how the intensity of light absorbed/transmitted will change with changes in solution type, solution concentration, container width, or light source and explain why?
Type: Virtual Manipulative
The lac operon is a set of genes which are responsible for the metabolism of lactose in some bacterial cells. Students will explore the effects of mutation within the lac operon by adding or removing genes from the DNA.
- Predicts the effects on lactose metabolism when the various genes and DNA control elements are mutated (added or removed).
- Predicts the effects on lactose metabolism when the concentration of lactose is changed.
- Explain the roles of Lacl, LacZ, and LacY in lactose regulation.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
Students will explore natural selection by controlling the environment and causing mutations in bunnies. This will demonstrate how natural selection works in nature. They will have the opportunity to throw in different variables to see what will make their species of rabbit survive.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
In this interactive Biotechniques virtual lab, you will isolate DNA from a human test subject and learn the uses for DNA obtained through extraction. The "Try It Yourself" section below the virtual lab gives instruction and background information about how to extract DNA from living tissue using basic materials available in grocery stores.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This site provides an introduction to microscopy and microscopes including history, images, and interactives.
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This is a simplified, interactive demonstration of genetic principles. Using a fictional species named the Norn, students can predict the outcome of genetic crosses (mono and di-hybrid, sex-linked, and multiple-allele). This could be used to strengthen the students understanding of genetics, practice Punnet squares, or practice calculation of genotypic/phenotypic ratios. However, it is unlikely to be useful as an independent assignment (if used as designed).
Type: Virtual Manipulative
This interactive cell membrane simulation allows students to see how different types of channels allow particles to move through the membrane.
Sample learning goals:
- Predict when particles will move through the membrane and when they will not.
- Identify which particle type will diffuse depending on which type of channels are present.
- Predict the rate of diffusion based on the number and type of channels present.
Type: Virtual Manipulative