Welcome to the Teachers' Center at Explore Biology. Here you will find resources to help you teach biology at the high school level.
Some of my
Regents lectures are supported by Powerpoint presentations. If you are not familiar, Regents is a 10th grade very simplified introduction to Biology, that is limited by a statewide exam. These PPTs are
not appropriate for AP Biology courses! I have just started to upload these, so please check back if you need. They are posted as compressed PowerPoint (zip) files. You will need a compression program to unzip them, like WinZip (PC) or Stuffit Expander (Mac).
Check out what we're doing online to expand beyond the classroom to the
virtual world -- to catch students wherever they hang out and entice them to think!
These daily worksheets are aligned with the Raven (7th ed.) textbook. The goal is to give students a daily assignment to get them to open the textbook, read it, and think about the material each night.
Building Macromolecules
A paper-scissor-tape activity used to help students envision the process of synthesis -- building macromlecules out of smaller subunits
- Instructions
- Photos -- my classes in action (both Regents and AP Biology).
- Glucose -- print on many different colors of paper to symbolize different sugars. Have students name each sugar with any name they want as long as it ends in -ose. Kimose is one of my favorites... or "ILoveBioTheMose"! Students can get very creative!
- Water Drops (large) -- I print on blue paper to symbolize water.
- Water Drops (small) -- easier to use for building fats. I print on blue paper to symbolize water.
- Glycerol (legal)
- Glycerol (letter) -- in case you don't have legal size paper.
- Saturated Fatty Acid (legal)
- Saturated Fatty Acid (letter) -- in case you don't have legal size paper.
- Unsaturated Fatty Acid (legal) -- print on different color paper than saturated fatty acid to accent difference.
- Unsaturated Fatty Acid (letter) -- in case you don't have legal size paper. Print on different color paper than saturated fatty acid to accent difference.
- DNA template -- have each group cut this template page down the middle and tape the two template strands end-to-end to make a longer chain for the template. I tend to copy these onto card stock so they are sturdier to hang in the classroom.
- DNA monophosphate bases -- Print each base's page in a different color and have students cut apart to build the complement to the DNA template from above. I tend to copy these onto card stock so they are sturdier to hang in the classroom. These are monophosphate nucleotides for the introduction to building the DNA molecule.
- DNA triphosphate bases -- These are triphosphate nucleotides for a higher level of understanding of how a DNA molecule is built (for AP students). All triphosphate bases are on one page. Have students cut apart to build the complement to the DNA template from above, but have them model the cleaving off of the diphosphate by DNA polymerase so they understand the energetics of the process. I tend to copy these onto card stock so they are sturdier to hang in the classroom. View some photos showing the end result of our DNA replication modeling activity.
- Amino Acids -- I have been wanting to improve these a bit but I haven't had the time. They are fine the way they are. Please use them. I have used them for years -- I just wanted to (obsessively) polish them. I print each one on a different color as much as possible. I give each student lab group an amino acid sequence to build (included in this ZIP archive). I ask them to use their text to identify & label each amino acid in their sequence and determine if each is polar (hydrophilic) or nonpolar (hydrophobic). They then bond the sequence using the water droplets for dehydration synthesis and then they have to predict how this chain will behave in the aqueous solution of the cell -- which parts will fold inward and which outward. I give them a lot of leeway on the last part. They then have to name their polypeptide with a name ending with -in, like most proteins. BTW, the amino acids may look slightly differently in the book depending if they are illustrated as ionized or not -- that makes for a good discussion about the effects of biochemistry in the watery environment of the cell.
An archive of syllabi submitted for the AP audit to help you develop your own. These are presented by permission of the authors to help other AP Biology teachers.
A resource for AP teachers developing their curriculum. This is an Excel spreadsheet. Input the total number of teaching days that you have in your school year and the spreadsheet will automatically calculate how many days you can devote to each AP Biology unit, roughly based on the percentages recommended in the College Board's AP Biology Course Description "Acorn" book.
This is the password-protected private Teachers' Vault -- where I store the files for teachers' eyes only. To gain access, you need to have received a password from me either via one of the teachers' listserves or by contacting me directly. If you e-mail me, you will need to prove you are a teacher by using your school e-mail address and by giving me your direct school contact info (telephone, etc.). I will follow up first to confirm, so access to this section is never immediate.
Enter the Vault.
