Curriculum
Students in a Biology Rocks! classroom are exposed to a variety of engaging inquiry-based labs and activities. Some experiments are long-time favorites of biology teachers everywhere, such as adaptations of Carolina’s macromolecule investigation “Digestion Biokit” and ecological field investigation “Population Density and Biomass Study Kit”. In addition, many experiments and labs focus on gathering data to answer questions. For example, when students’ questions involve innate animal behavior they answer them by monitoring blackworm heart rates under experimental conditions. Later they investigate photosynthesis by measuring a plant’s photosynthetic starch production. The labs and activities are designed with the freedom to allow the students to do the thinking in an inquiry environment. The students learn valuable problem-solving skills and investigation techniques in addition to the course material! A more complete list of the labs contained in the curriculum with brief descriptions is attached here.
+ An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. - Niels Bohr
+ "What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw
Standards
The labs and activities that are incorporated into the Biology Rocks! curriculum are specifically designed to teach the material found in the Kansas Life Science Standards. Lab investigations are central to the delivery of the curriculum and development of core skill mastery. The labs and activities are not supplementary, but are instead designed to be self-sufficient. As a result, the classroom maintains a very high proportion of “lab days” while still meeting the state and national requirements for a biology classroom. An outline of lab activities and their corresponding standards is attached here.
We have provided here a link to the Kansas State Standards for Science. References to standards in the document to the left correspond to this list of standards.
