Climate change is a contemporary global crisis that necessitates pedagogical innovation for the middle school dance classroom. This article describes an integrated design for a dance and science unit. Building on students' kinesthetic abilities, teachers are able to create a unit comprising a series of lessons on bird migrations effected by…

Case studies are valuable tools for instruction but are often limited to a single topic and a single class period. Courses such as evolution that synthesize multiple concepts around a common theme, however, can use a single case study type project that extends over the entire semester to develop and link core concepts. A central theme in…

Many K-16 educators agree that active learning is a key component for student success in life sciences. At the same time, some instructors are frustrated by inconsistent student participation in these activities and may revert to traditional teaching strategies. Horse caregivers face a similar frustration when they lead a horse to water and it…

I teach an animal behavior course where students conduct independent research projects; however, using live animals for research is challenging at a small university. Often, students choose to conduct a laboratory project over a field project believing that it will be easier to observe animals and control variables, but it can be difficult and…

In this article, fourth graders investigate the physical and behavioral adaptations of crayfish. Because crayfish are native to the area and many students have experience observing them in local streams, the author decided to use these organisms to explore the relationship between the structure of their various body parts and how those structures…

An important part of promoting scientific literacy is developing disciplinary literacy practices, such as obtaining information from text and sharing investigation results through talk and writing. To support students to develop disciplinary literacy practices in science, educators must provide opportunities for them to work with multiple…

After the summer nesting period, broad winged hawks are known for migrating nearly 10,000 kilometers, (6,200 miles) each fall from their breeding grounds in North America to tropical biomes in South America, where they spend the winter. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has labeled broad-winged hawks as a species of "least…

Students will analyze the coevolution of the predator-prey relationships between "Tyrannosaurus rex" and its prey species using analyses of animal speeds from fossilized trackways, prey-animal armaments, adaptive behaviors, bite marks on prey-animal fossils, predator-prey ratios, and scavenger competition. The students will be asked to…

Populations of the Eastern subterranean termite, "Reticulitermes flavipes," are widespread throughout most of the eastern United States. Subterranean termites have the ability to survive flooding conditions by lowering their metabolism. This lesson investigates the connection between the ability of termites to lower their metabolism to…

Hands-on activities with live organisms allow students to actively explore scientific investigation. Here, I present activities that combine guided inquiry with direct instruction and relate how nutrition affects the physiology and behavior of the common housefly. These experiments encourage student involvement in the formulation of experimental…

The way an animal moves from place to place can inform us about its life and environment. In this lesson, students examine the travel patterns of juvenile flatfishes in an estuary. The process of sampling bottom-dwelling fishes is explained, and data from a university-based marine science laboratory are evaluated. Students compare the distance…

In this article , the authors describe an activity in which students in Savannah, Georgia, use handheld GPS devices to record the sightings of bottlenose dolphins, examine spatial data from five pairs of dolphins in the study, and then form hypotheses about the spatial patterns they observe. In the process, they learn not only about the ecology of…

The behavior of animals is an intrinsically fascinating topic for students from a wide array of backgrounds. We describe a learning experience using animal behavior that we created for middle school students as part of a graduate-student outreach program, Graduate Partners in Science Education, at Arizona State University in collaboration with a…

The study of evolutionary theory and fieldwork in animal behavior is enriched when students leave the classroom so they may test their abilities to think and act like scientists. This article describes a course on evolutionary theory and animal behavior that blended on campus learning with field experience in the United States and in Ecuador and…

Predator-prey dynamics are an important concept in ecology, often serving as an introduction to the field of community ecology. However, these dynamics are difficult for students to observe directly. We describe a methodology that employs model caterpillars made of clay to estimate rates of predator attack on a prey species. This approach can be…