Middle & High School

In November 2018, NAASC hosted an NSF-funded* workshop entitled "Broadening the Impact of Plant Science Through Community-Based Innovation, Evaluation and Sharing of Outreach Programs" at the University of California, Davis. The 3-day workshop was organized by members of NAASC**, and before it started…

PlantingScience is an online mentoring program that virtually connects scientists with junior high or high school students as they participate in inquiry-based activities with plants. Mentors commit to an hour or so per week over roughly two to four weeks, during which they respond to student questions…

Setting something to music is a well-known method for supporting learning (think about the alphabet song that you learned as a child). Gregory J. Crowther has assembled a searchable database of science-themed songs, along with lesson plans and suggestions for how to use songs in your teaching.…

Cross-posted from Kelsey Wood with permission. Kelsey is a PhD student at U.C. Davis. How to make a DNA bracelet, from any organism and any gene! I study plant-pathogen interactions, so I chose to make a sequence from a wild tobacco gene that is important for plant defense against pathogens. What…

Amazing - over 1.5 million views in less than 24 hours - this is a popular video series! Here is a list of sources from the YouTube page: SOURCES: #What is natural: GM insulin: http://bit.ly/2ncHaW5 Genetic engineering for thousands of years: http://bit.ly/2eCHKfi http://bit.ly/2mLCvPm CRISPR: http://bit.ly/2ncI2uN #…

A free curriculum for grades 5 - 7 Download at http://ucbiotech.org/backyardmystery/ About Backyard Mystery Backyard Mystery is part of the STEMware™ project, “Collaborative Research Strategies: STEMware™ – Designing Immersive Biology Learning Simulations for Formal and Informal Settings”.…

The All In the Touch curriculum was developed by Dr. Peggy G. Lemaux and her assistant, Science Communication Specialist Ms. Barbara Alonso at the University of California, Berkeley with funding from the American Society of Plant Biologists (http://aspb.org ). Dr. Cristina Reynaga-Pena also contributed…

Botanical terms can seem obscure. Why not help your students master some terminology through a word search puzzle? Download it here: http://aspb.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Plant-Evolution-SearchaWord.pdf

Help eradicate plant blindness as students explore the plants that comprise their indoor environent. This quick, classroom-ready page (PDF) is ideally suited for  middle grade students. "Plants are all around us. Plants are used for their fiber, oil and nutritional content. They help us have clean…

Help eradicate plant blindness as students explore plant biology concepts and hands-on activities related to a hamburger. This quick, classroom-ready page (PDF) is ideally suited for  middle grade students. The back of the sheet lists the plants needed to make a burger, from barley to wheat! How…

One of the most important skills a young scientist needs to learn is how to read (and write) scientific papers. Some students begin to learn this in a high school biology classes, and others as they begin their university coursework. To help instructors teach these critical skills, we created two articles…

The Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) has developed numerous investigative activities using Arabidopsis. Most of the activities are suitable for high school or college level students. You can order seeds (usually free to educators) and download teaching guides from the Education and Outreach…

Instructions for activities using brassica, suitable for students of all ages. Through activities spanning the life cycle of Wisconsin Fast Plants®, you and your students can explore many aspects of plant growth and development and reproduction. In its 35 – 45 day life cycle, the Wisconsin Fast…

The other day I was talking to a friend about the need to demystify plants, so that teachers feel as confident in their teaching of plant biology as they do about animal biology. I wonder if sometimes we teach plants too much in isolation, so it’s not always clear how plants relate to other organisms…

We've assembled a collection of relatively accessible talks by scientists. These include: TED talks, which are directed at a general audience, the iBiology series, where speakers deliver a general talk followed by a research-focused talk, and videos of lectures at the Gatsby Plants summer school for…

Science In Real Life (IRL) is an educational YouTube series that’s here to show you how textbook science concepts come to life in the lab. Since each episode revolves around an experiment that a scientist does every day in the lab or field, our viewers also get to see what being a scientist is like,…

A summary of recent research onto the recognition of strigolactones by parasitic plants, written for high school students, including a glossary. Source: Science News for Students View resource

These free modules catalyze exploration of Arabidopsis and heredity, cellular processes, characteristics of life, and responses to the environment. Modules include seed stocks, protocols, teaching guides, and videos. Aligned with Ohio Department of Education standards for grades 8-10.  Most modules…

Free resources to bring a global dimension to science lessons Make The Link offers four units looking at topics like the provision of clean water, the impact of climate change across the world, the development of clean, fuel-efficient stoves for cooking meals in areas with limited infrastructure and…

Earth science is emerging as a demanding high-school science course that prepares learners for college admissions and informed citizenship. Earth science classes integrate physics, chemistry, and biology to introduce students to a rich body of concepts and knowledge with which to understand the world…

In this lesson from National Geographic Education, students explore the resources that make up our agricultural system. Students examine land uses and soil quality through graphs of land use and crop production and use computational models to compare the effect of different management strategies on the…

In this lesson from National Geographic Education, students will explore the distribution and uses of fresh water on Earth. They will examine models of porosity and permeability, run experiments with computational models, and hear from a hydrologist working on the same question. At the end of the lesson,…

This 17 page PDF guides the reader step-by-step through a paper published in Plant Physiology. The paper examines the genetics of flower color in pea and is attached as part of the PDF. The resources helps a student to understand the types of content found in various sections of a research article, and…

This introduction to epigenetic regulation in plants, with nice graphics, is suitable for high school students or older. Source: Science and Plants for Schools View resource

From PBS, 2015. An engaging summary of a fascinating Open Access article - Plant defenses against ants provide a pathway to social parasitism in butterflies. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences. 282: 20151111. Patricelli, D., Barbero, F., Occhipinti, A., Bertea, C.M.,…

A step-by-step pictorial summary of how researchers use mutant and transgenic plants to understand plant immunity - suitable for teachers, high school students and others. Source: HHMI, University of North Carolina, Anna Stallman View resource

This resource is for science educators and others interested in learning more about biotechnology and its role in food production. There are seven lessons and activities covering topics such as DNA, selective breeding, agricultural biotechnology, and more. Lessons Include: Design 'Y'er Genes …

This free guide (PDF) has over forty hands-on activities for PreK-12th grade students and the public. Activities are succinctly & beautifully presented. Each one includes goals, materials, procedures, age guidelines and teaching tips useful photos on 1-2 pages. Overarching themes include: Art,…

Student and teacher guides for hands-on investigation into how auxin affects root growth. Source: Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) View resource

Help eradicate plant blindness as students explore plant biology concepts and hands-on activities related to everyone's favorite clothing item: denim jeans. These quick, classroom-ready pages (PDFs) are ideally suited for  middle grade students: Plants in Your Pants: Find out how the cotton plant…

Students take a close look at the math & biology involved in the creation of seed, leaf, and petal spiral patterns. These multi-modal, inquiry-oriented activities align with NGSS and CCSS and are scalable for middle and high school/AP students. View resource

In this investigation, students explore how various amounts of fertilizer affect growth and development of plants. Source: Wisconsin Fasts Plants View resource

Students use barley, radish or algae to explore how various macronutrients and micronutrients affect growth. View resource from the Nuffield Foundation

Explore the verdant garden of words and phrases rooted in plants through science-oriented word play suitable for sophisticated middle schoolers & up. View resource

The goal of this project is to explain leaf decomposition and how it relates to the Earth's carbon cycle and climate. This website contains a series of animated lessons about decomposition, an interactive model that lets you predict how different types of leaves will decompose in different climates,…

This experiment using agar plates and white mustard seeds allows students to visualise the development of roots, their root hair cells, and observe the zones of elongation and differentiation. They will then use a graticule to measure their length. Students can then extend their investigations to observe…

Students grow both wild-type and dwarf rosette mutants of Wisconsin Fast Plants and experiment with application of gibberellic acid to help provide a visual example of the effects of this plant hormone on plant growth and development. View resource See also Investigating Plant Physiology with Wisconsin…

Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) develops lots of useful resources for teachers of the UK's A-level biology syllabus (OCR, AQA, EdExcel and Eduqas specifications). This is an improved and simplified protocol that allows students to observe mitosis in root tips. Toluidine blue is used to stain…

Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) creates opportunities for teachers and students to find out more about plants and to become more interested in plant science. We are based at the Sainsbury Lab, Cambridge with close links with the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, University of Cambridge Department…

The Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) is a distributed community effort involving educators, students, and scientists working together to improve the quality, quantity, and efficiency of teaching and learning about the Earth system at all levels. DLESE supports Earth system science…