I’m a chemistry/physics teacher, but I know a couple of ideas for biology.

Something really cool that I’ve seen done, is you take a green laser (I think red works, but not as well) and you use it to make a projection.

You take an eyedropper and fill it with pondwater, then hook up the eyedropper so that it is hanging by a clamp. Then take a second clamp and clamp partially on the squeeze part so that a drop of water is hanging from the eyedropper, but doesn’t fall. (that last part is hard to read, but use 2 clamps, and have an eyedropper with pond water, with 1 drop of water about to fall)

Then hook up the laser so that it shines through the drop. The drop will act as a lens, and it will project the drop of water. In the drop of water will be all kinds of bacteria and paramecium and you can see them swimming around in it. I don’t know how to make it into a lab, but there is a lot of good science in it.

If you teach photosynthesis, then there is a great reverse photosynthesis demonstration called “demise of a gummy bear”. You take potassium chlorate, (KClO3) and put it in a test tube. Then you heat it with a bunsen burner until it looks like a liquid. Then you drop a gummy bear in and get far away. The potassium chlorate produces a bunch of oxygen gas, which reacts with the sugar in the gummy bear to make water and carbon dioxide (the reverse of photosynthesis). Also since photosysnthesis requires light, the reverse reaction will produce a lot of light (kind of like a minifirework). If you do that one, be careful of the potassium chlorate, you don’t want to get it on your hands. It’s something that won’t burn right away, but will eat through your skin slowly.

Labs I’ve done: We did a chromatography lab with chromatography paper. You can separate inks out of differnet colored markers. You can also use it with spinach leaves to separate out the pigments. Very simple to do, just use a quarter to smash some pigment from a spinach leaf onto the paper. THen hang the paper in a container with the solvent (I don’t remember, but probably ethyl acetate, acetone would work). Then it will separate out the different colors.

We also took spinach leaves and this wasn’t easy. But you can removed the skin from them (a clear layer) by tearing them. When you tear you’ll see a little bit if you rip it correctly. Then we put those under a microscope and surveyed how many stomates there were.

If I were teaching oceanography I would show them how to distill seawater and talk about how cost effective it is and how difficult it is on a large scale.

I have a fun activity that shows the importance of doing careful observations in the lab. I know it sounds corny, but done well, the kids will learn about doing good work for you. Just before class, put 10-12 raisins in a flask then add Mello Yellow. Place this in a box and close the lid. Then after the students arrive, explain that a friend fo yours has been doing research on sewer slugs that help digest waste in sewage. They sent you a sample and ask you to have a class observe them and record what they see. Explain that students must remain in their seats so everyone can see the same thing clearly. Tell them record exactly what they observe on a sheet of paper and note the time of each activity. H:M:S format. Remove the flask and place it on YOUR desk/lab table so they can see, but not approach. As they write explain that after 10 minutes the water will be safe to drink. Select a volunteer to drink the “water”. Then have the students pass around the flask and see what is really happening. Ask them for a hypothesis. (The CO2 builds in the raisins folds and it rises to the surface. Then the raisin returns to the bottom having released some of the gas.) This is a fun opener.

Cool things for bio – raising a garden and trying hydroponics, owl pellets, culture bacteria from school surfaces and hands….

Oceanography – Wave tables, mini tsunamis, temperature mixing of water. (Food color for each of two containers of different temps.) Hurricane tracking, invite a hurricane hunter to speak. etc.

Ask your colleagues, they will have a bank of lab ideas!

To the guy below me… please, no owl pellets. PLEASE.