• A Lesson to Dye For [Middle School, integrated]
  Plant dyes are a focus for integrating student invesitgations, history and art. Students use trial-and-error and controlled experiment to explore different plant sources, fibers, colors, mordants, and large scale dyeing. Dyed products can lead to various handcraft projects, such as basic stitchery. Lessons also include the historical, geographical and economic roles of dyes. Role-play of an important woman of Colonial times who introduced indigo to the U.S.
• women in the Scientific Revolution -- Hildegard von Bingen/middle school astronomy and Maria Merian/insects
• Expertise & the Social Dimension of Science [HIPST*]
• scientific societies (Frederico Cesi and the Accademia Lincei)
  

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Primary

• Contested Currents (Edison & Westinghouse on AC vs. DC current) [grades 4-6]
• Chemical and Human Resources, Part I
  Third grade students study mystery powders to understand physical and chemical properties and their changes, while learning about the chemists who first made those discoveries historically.
• Chemical and Human Resources, Part II
  In the fourth, fifth and sixth grade, students research these historical chemists in more depth, enacting them in vignettes, and teaching their findings to the third graders.

• Christian Eijkman & the Cause of Beriberi -- the story of vitamins
• Native American herbalism
  
• maize and indigenous agriculture
  
• classification, imaging, scientific societies (Frederico Cesi and the Accademia Lincei, early 1600s)
  
• early microscopes (1600s)
  
• (re)discovering circulation (William Harvey, early 1600s)
• Richard Lower & the "life force" (function of the lungs in aerating the blood)
• the nervous system and the seat of feelings: Thomas Willis and the brain in the 1600s
• Maria Merian and insects (women in the Scientific Revolution)
  
• smallpox variolation from Turkey in the 1700s
  
• Abraham Trembley & the Creature that Defies Classification (on the zoophyte, hydra).
• Wallace in the Amazon: Palm Trees & Their Uses
• Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of the origin of species
• "Charles Darwin, the Copley Medal and the Rise of Naturalism" -- 10-class role-play simulation
• interpreting the Archaeopteryx fossil
  
• Robert Koch & tuberculosis
• Henry David Thoreau & forest succession
• Archibald Garrod & the Black Urine Disease -- on inborn errors of metabolism and the "one gene-one enzyme" concept
• The Railroad Workers' Disease {Carlos Chagas & Chagas Disease]
• King D Carlos, Naturalist and Oceanographer [HIPST*]
• Sickle-Cell Anemia and levels in biology, 1910-1966
• the behavioral psychology of B.F. Skinner
  
• Carleton Gajdusek & Kuru
• Debating Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: The President's Advisory Committee on Pesticides, 1963 -- Situate students in 1963 to experience the emergence of modern environmental movement. 12-20 roles.
• Roger Payne and whale sounds
• the history of wolves in Minnesota
  
• Points East and West -- Western studies of the centuries-old Chinese practice of acupuncture offer an opportunity to discuss both controlled experiments and the cultural contexts of scientific method.

Doing Biology (Harper Collins, 1996)

1. H.B.D. Kettlewell & the Peppered Moths
2. Robert Whittaker & the Classification of Kingdoms
3. Lynn Margulis & the Question of How Cells Evolved
4. Nettie Stevens & the Problem of Sex Determination
5. Thomas Hunt Morgan & the White-eyed Mutant
6. Oswald Avery & the Search for the Transforming Factor
7. Hans Krebs & the Problem of Cellular Respiration
8. Peter Mitchell & How Cells Make ATP
9. Walter Cannon & Self-Regulation in Animals
10. Hans Seyle, Hormones & Stress
11. Christiaan Eijkman & the Cause of Beriberi
12. Western Science, Pain & Acupuncture
13. Frank M. Burnet & How Animals Make Antibodies
14. Niko Tinbergen & the Mating Behavior of Sticklebacks
15. J.B.S. Haldane & the Hardy-Weinberg Model
16. George Gaylord Simpson & Continental Drift
17. Rachel Carson & Silent Spring

• Sucking Students Into an Understanding of Air Pressure and Vacuums [*middle school] -- borrowing from problems and investigations in the 17th century.
• Acidity: perfect or real? [HIPST*]
• acids and alkalis in historical perpsective
  
• Measuring Heat and Temperature (thermometers and calorimetry) [HIPST*]
• refrigeration & ice production [HIPST*]
• the chemistry of indigo dye in ancient cultures
  
• distillation and perfumes in 17th-century French courts
  
• chemistry of Egyptian cosmetics
  
• revisiting phlogiston as a key to understanding metals and oxidation and reduction reactions
• on the debate that led to the law of definite proportions
  
• atomic weights and Avogadro's hypothesis
• Steam, Work & Energy [HIPST*]
• Splendor of the Spectrum: Bunsen, Kirchoff and the origin of spectroscopy
• Faraday's Candle Observations -- linking a favorite exercise about the nature of observation to the originator, Michael Faraday
• The Mendeleev Puzzle: Not So Simple as it Seems -- challenge students to detect patterns even when everything is not perfectly organized
• Polymers and Serendipity -- introduces organic chemistry through common molecules and the stories of their often "accidental" discoveries

• see also Astronomy
• The Magentic Earth -- William Gilbert's discoveries in 1600.
• Debating Galileo's Dialog, 1633 -- as a role-play activity for up to 32 participants.
• Time and Space Across Time and Space [middle school] how time and space have been viewed at different times in history and in different cultures--including Nigeria
• Robert Hooke, Hooke's law and the watch spring
• light and color (Newton, late 1600s)
• light as a particle or a wave: From Newton & Huygens (late 1600s) to Young's double slit expt (1803).
• Electricity [HIPST*]
  1. William Gilbert - Separating Electric from Magnetic Effects
  2. Otto von Guericke - Analogies, Forces & the Quality of Scientific Instruments
  3. Charles du Fay - Explorative Experiments: Describing and Explaing Electrical Phenomena
  4. Stephen Gray - Electrical Conduction on the wrong track
  5. Travelling Showmen - Electricity, Entertainment and the Construction of Scientificality
• Contested Currents (Edison & Westinghouse on AC vs. DC current)
• Electomagnetism & the Telegraph [HIPST*]
• Committee on Uranium -- 1939 decision on research for an atomic bomb [role-play activity]
  

• Hildegard von Bingen/middle school astronomy (women in the Scientific Revolution)
• The Magentic Earth -- William Gilbert's discoveries in 1600.
• Development of Glacial Theory, 1800-1870 -- self-guided or role-play activity.
• Debating Galileo's Dialog, 1633 -- as a role-play activity
• interpreting the Archaeopteryx fossil
• Charles Keeling & Measuring Atmospheric CO₂ -- the origin of the "Keeling Curve" and an introduction to climate change

last updated: 9/7/10