This activity presents a fun, collaborative and interdisciplinary way to get students excited about the study of human genetics. Students pair up to create a genetic portrait of their imaginary family based on several observable, heritable traits. By actively using their knowledge, students will appreciate the importance and meaning of the study of genetics in its real-life context.

In this activity, students use their knowledge of levers to compete against another student in a simple game. Students will add wooden blocks or similar objects to a tray balanced on a pivot. By competing to keep the tray level, students will learn about the physics of levers.

In this lesson, students discuss and demonstrate the internal structure of the magnet through a kinesthetic activity.

In this lesson, students discover the impact that flooding has on people's lives, and how science and technology can mitigate its effects and help find potential solutions. Working in teams, students design and build a model of a flood-proof home for their family on the fictitious isalnd of Watu. They will consider how flooding affects the whole community and work out where the best place for a home would be.

In this lesson, students take on the role of a quality analyst from a small independent quality control firm that checks results to ensure that they meet the requirements of the UK Environment Agency. The test involves adding an acidic solution of iron(III) chloride to the water sample and measuring the concentration of thiocyanate photometrically by measuring the absorbance due to the iron(III) thiocyanate complex.

Although bioinformatics usually involves huge computers and sequencing machines, the methods of this new science can be presented by means of simple classroom activities to be carried out with pencil and paper. The author of this activity challenges us with the building of the family tree of humans and other primates on the basis of the genetic differences between short (fake) DNA sequences. The proposed activity can be profitably (and enjoyably) exploited in secondary schools to address some tricky biology topics such as the use of molecular clocks in the study of evolution.

Students "breed" baby dragons using paper chromosomes to determine the genotype and phenotype.

This article provides instructions for students to build a radio telescope and offers several possibilities for using them to study space.

In this activity, students learn about how life on Earth is possible and what would be needed to live in other locations in the solar system.

The teaching activities in this article aim to actively involve students in a search for mutations that could potentially lead to cancer development, using real genomic data.

In this lesson, student teams compete to construct the fastest car, using their knowledge of physics.

Students are introduced to the topic of bioremediation and collect information about Azolla, such as the morphology of water plants as opposed to land plants, the importance of symbiosis, the nitrogen cycle, the use of Azolla in agriculture, and Azolla’s ability to absorb heavy metals. Students formulate the research questions and hypotheses that they would like to investigate. Possible topics include measuring the gain in biomass depending on growth conditions (e.g. CO2 level, iron level in the water, amount of light), or the effect of Azolla on water quality.

In this activity, students use a vivid colour-changing demonstration to illustrate a chain of redox reactions, whereby electrons are transferred between different compounds and ions.

Students are asked to crack a code of different sequences of letters using the messages that those sequences encode. In each of the first three steps, each team is given a different set of letter sequences and corresponding messages. At each step, they will need to re-evaluate their conclusions from the previous steps, and modify their solution to the code. All groups will be working to crack the same code, using different examples. Students should focus on finding patterns and relationships. The crux of the activity is the existence of the code rather than the details of transcription and translation, which can be addressed in subsequent lessons.

In this activity, students will build a model in order to demonstrate how and why eclipses happen.

In this game, students are introduced to the use of DNA in forensics and the ethical questions involved.

Students investigate the relationship between the presence of green pigment, food production, and leaf growth.

This article provides several simple, fun experiments for elementary students to investigate what happens to solids, liquids, and gases when they are heated.