BAM - Great Education resources from the CDC

The CDC has some great resources for educators, including one on Concussions in children and sports. I just found another part of their site that has more educational resources.

BAM - Body and Mind - is a collection of resources for educators and students aged 9-13 (although you can scale the materials upward). The site has information about healthy lifestyles, diseases, stress, food and nutrition, physical fitness, safety and the human body.

The educator resources include interactive activities and lesson resources that are linked to the national education standards for science and health. There are handouts, lesson plans, and links to other resources.

The activities are fun, well-designed, and educational and can be used in a health or life science / biology course.

Be The Beat - learn CPR in a fun way - from the American Heart Assoc.

Be The Beat is a great resource from the American Heart Association. The site has educational games and resources to learn CPR. It's a great resource to use with your students to teach them CPR and there are specific resources for educators on the site with lesson plans, posters, training resources, emergency planning resources, information about the challenge competition, and more. HeartTrek is a very cool, 3D exploration game on the site that allows students to learn about heart health, explore a 3D model of the heart, and a virtual cardiac arrest that they can play to try to save a life.

As a paramedic with over 23 years experience, I can tell you that bystander CPR is one of the most critical factors in helping a cardiac arrest victim to survive. Use this site to teach your students how to save a life!

Sudden Cardiac Arrest can strike anyone, anywhere—and when it does, a victim’s chance of survival depends on the people around them. That could mean you! Fast recognition, calling 911, immediate CPR and use of an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) can double—or even triple—a victim’s chance of survival. So how do we improve the odds?* 

We're Training a Team of Heart Heroes
Be the Beat is an online Sudden Cardiac Arrest awareness initiative to teach teens all across the country the simple steps that can save a life—and create the next generation of lifesavers. 

Don’t Just Stand There!
It only takes a few minutes to learn about a critical skill that could save a life. You can make a difference! Check out the games, music, videos and giveaways here and join the movement of teen lifesavers—just like you—who are ready to step in and Be the Beat if they ever need to.
Teachers and administrators can visit bethebeat.heart.org/schools to find free tools that can help start and sustain CPR and AED programs. 

About the American Heart Association
For more than 40 years, tens of millions of people—from new parents to advanced medical professionals— have trusted the American Heart Association to deliver their lifesaving CPR training programs and materials. We sponsor the international evaluation of current resuscitation science that leads to the American Heart Association Guidelines on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, for CPR training guidelines used by hospitals, schools and EMS systems in the U.S. and around the world.
* Statistics: Almost 80% of sudden cardiac arrests happen outside the hospital, less than 30% of victims receive bystander CPR and only 8% survive to hospital discharge.

Bones, Stones, and Genes - the Origins of Modern Humans, - free education resource

Bones, Stones, and Genes - the Origins of Modern Humans, is a new free resource from Biointeractive, a great site from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. It was one of the lectures from last year, but the DVD (free) is now available.

In Bones, Stones, and Genes, three leading researchers of human evolution reveal the fossil and genetic evidence chronicling the origin of humans. It is available as streaming videos (or downloads) and as a free DVD. It is divided into parts:

Lecture 1: Human Evolution and the Nature of Science by Tim D. White, Ph.D.
Lecture 2: Genetics of Human Origins and Adaptation by Sarah A. Tishkoff, Ph.D.
Lecture 3: Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Behavior by John J. Shea, Ph.D.
Lecture 4: Hominid Paleobiology by Tim D. White, Ph.D.
Discussion: Genetics of Bitter Taste Perception
Discussion: Reporting Scientific Results to the Public

There are lectures, interactive features, videos, animations, student discussions, interviews and even Spanish subtitles for ELL.

The lectures and materials on Biointeractive are excellent and a great addition to any teacher's resources. 

How Vaccines are Made - very cool and informative site

Vaccines are pretty amazing when you think about it. Take a deadly substance and make something that will protect us from the deadly substance.

My wife is a Biology teacher and was teaching her students about Vaccines and Diseases and shared this site with me.

How Vaccines are Made is part of an interactive site, The History of Vaccines, that uses multimedia to explain how vaccines are made, how they work, types of vaccines, and much more. There are also sections on the Scientific Method, Diseases, and Immunity.

The site is very well designed and easy to understand. There is an Educator page with lesson plans to use with the activities also. This is an interesting topic that gets students engaged and interested in science.

Build-A-Body - very cool interactive biology site - build a human body

Build-A-Body is a very cool interactive site that allows students to build a human body, system-by-system.

It is an easy to use, drag and drop interface, where students drag and drop the different systems, organs, and bones to build a body. Each system has descriptions and information and there are case studies about diseases. 

It would be useful for human biology, medicine, or anatomy classes and allows students to learn and explore the body in a visual, interactive way.


Related:

Inner Body Human Anatomy and Physiology

Healthline Body Maps - Human Anatomy Resource

Anatomy Arcade - anatomy games and resources

Free Anatomy Resources 

Virtual Human Body

National Wildlife Federation resources for Educators

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has some great resources for educators on their web site. There is a news section, wildlife animal information and resources, environment and global climate change resources, and much more.




They have wildlife cameras that you can view, such as the Eagle Cam, an incredible Wildlife Library with information about different animals and species, and Wild Places where you can virtually visit and explore some great wild parts of America.

There are outdoor activity guides and things to do outside, Wildlife news reports, and Global Climate Change resources.



The Kids Page is well done also, explaining topics with children in mind, animations, videos, explanations, and even mobile apps.


The NWF also offers free webinars on a variety of topics.


This is a great resource for teachers and students to use when studying wildlife, nature, and the environment.

Interactive Biology - free videos, quizzes and study guides on Biology

Interactive Biology is a website that has videos, quizzes, and study guides for biology. There are fee based and free resources on the site, including free downloads of biology presentations. 

There is also a YouTube channel that has some good videos. The multiple choice quizzes on the site are based on the videos and study guides and offer immediate feedback and hints to the student. 

Related:

Biology Corner - awesome resources for Biology and more!

Scitable - biology and life science resources for educators

Scitable is a resource site for teachers that contains resources, links, lesson plans for genetics and cell biology. There are also resources for science careers.

There are news articles, links, topic resources, videos, animations, and graphics.

The site also has science articles, discussion boards, collaboration section, and a way to build an online classroom with resources for your students.

This is a great resource for Biology teachers and their students.

Mission Biotech - free, educational science video game

Mission Biotech is a free, immersive computer game that has students solve challenging problems in biotechnology. It is part of the OUTBREAK project funded by the National Science Foundation.

The game is an interesting and fun virtual environment, first person adventure game using 3D graphics. It takes place in the virtual National Laboratory for Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (NLBB). Players are biotechnologists and have to diagnose a deadly virus that is turning into a pandemic. The game progresses with students learning new things to complete the game and mini-games, learning science and simulated biotechnology techniques. The students extract nucleic acids, conduct polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and analyze their results, just like a real scientist would.

There is a page for teachers that has instructions on how to get their class started use the game. By signing up as a teacher, you will gain access to curriculum and lesson materials and be able to track your students' progress in the game.

This is a great, fun, interactive way for students to learn and apply what they have learned. They learn and use biology skills and knowledge, analysis, critical thinking, and problem solving.

 

Mission Biotech - gaming for learning: http://missionbiotech.com/ 



Related:

Angry Birds Space and NASA team up for fun science

Roller Coaster Game as Learning Tool in Physics

Video Games as learning tools (Angry Birds)

35 Educational Games and Resources

Bronx Zoo Teaching Fellowships - great opportunity for students/educators

The Bronx Zoo (NYC, USA) is a great zoo. They have educational programs in addition to the typical zoo things, and they have teaching fellowships available.

The Teaching Fellowship program is a great opportunity for college students, recent graduates and graduate students to explore conservation education. Fellows learn how to provide a wildlife classroom with student directed learning and conservation issues.

Fellows are paid ($10-$12 per hour) but the learning experience is priceless.

More information can be found at the site: http://bronxzoo.com/educators/teaching-fellows.aspx

There are two Fellowship terms:

School term – starts mid-September and runs through mid-June; fellows must be available to work four weekdays each week, 9:00 a.m.– 2:30 p.m. Additional weekend and overnight hours are also required. School year fellows must have a valid driver’s license.

Summer term – starts mid-June and runs for eleven weeks; fellows must be able to work Monday–Friday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. for all eleven weeks. 

To apply, please go to https://sh.webhire.com/Public/907/ and follow instructions for the on-line application system. For questions about the Bronx Zoo Teaching Fellowship, please contact wcsteachingfellow@wcs.org. 

Teaching Fellowship FAQs 
Please note that these are education-focused fellowships, coordinated through the Bronx Zoo Education Department. They do not involve any animal care or maintenance. 

BioDigital Human - great anatomy resource for education

BioDigital Human is an incredible resource for anatomy. It is a very powerful resource, that lets you view the human body in 3D, hiding and removing layers, creating custom views, and much more. It is a great way to be able to visualize the human body for biology, anatomy and medical students.

It does require updated browsers and access to advanced graphics performance, so it may not work on all computers.

Here is a great video from their site that shows it in more detail:

Related:

Google Body is now Zygote Body - explore the human body in 3D

InnerBody - anatomy and physiology resources

Healthline Body Maps - human anatomy resource

Anatomy Arcade - interactive anatomy resource

Visible Body - human anatomy 

Excellent Medical Animations for teachers and students

The University of Pennsylvania Health System has a great web site with medical animations. The animations show and explain many different medical problems, anatomy and physiology and the human body.

As I viewed different animations I quickly realized how useful this can be in a classroom. Health, Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, Emergency Medical Technician, Paramedic, Pre-med and Nursing students will all find this site useful as they learn about the human body and it's systems. 

The site is easy to navigate, with a listing of all of the animations on one page. They are sorted by topic/body system. There are animations about each body system, diseases, pregnancy, surgeries, and medical problems.

You will need to make sure you have Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, and Quicktime installed on your computer to view the animations.

InnerBody - Human Anatomy and Physiology resources

InnerBody is a site that has resources to help learn about human anatomy and physiology. There are animations, graphics, descriptions and links to help students learn about the human body. There are charts, models and diagrams to help explain the anatomy. The interface is easy to use and search to find what you are looking for. This is a great resource for any human anatomy and physiology class.

BioBuilder - informative animations and activities for synthetic biology

BioBuilder is a free resource with animations and activities about synthetic biology. The animations are about the interactions between a lab scientist and a learner as they brainstorm about topics and issues in science, engineering, technology and even community. There are also lab activities available.

There are also "bioprimers" which are one page curriculum resources to go with the animations for high schools and early college.

Synthetic Biology: "Synthetic biologists apply engineering principles and extend genetic engineering techniques to construct new genetic systems". This is a new field with lots of implications. 

There is also another website that has some other great resources and ideas for using BioBuilder. 

http://openwetware.org/wiki/BioBuilding:_Synthetic_Biology_for_Teachers

Biology Corner - awesome resources for Biology and more!

The Biology Corner is a fantastic web site my wife uses quite often. The site has resources for teachers including lesson plans, web quests, quizzes, and much more. The site is set up by "class" - Anatomy 1 and 2, AP Biology, Biology 1 and 1a, Biology 2 and 2a, and Physics.

Worksheets are also sorted by topic, and images and media have their own menu.

The material is very useful and I like the class format for the resources. It is set up sequentially and allows for easy scanning for resources.

iBioSeminars - Free Biology videos online

iBioSeminars is a site that contains free Biology videos. The videos are on-demand lectures that are available to view online or download. Each video starts with an extended introduction so that students can understand the topic better. They are mainly geared towards college, but teachers could use them to review concepts or learn about new topics and they could also be used with AP Biology classes.

There is an education page on the site that has lecture notes, questions and answers, and short video clips to use for teaching. The videos cover a huge range of Biology topics and subjects.

Google Body is now Zygote Body and it's live

Google used to have a great 3D human anatomy resource called Google Body Browser. It was an interactive way to explore the human body. It's been described as "Google Earth" for the human body.

Google shut it down when they shut down Google Labs, but Zygote, the company that developed it for Google, has brought it back as the Zygote Body.

The site is new and you need to use a browser and OS that supports webGL. Most new browsers support this, but Windows XP does not. (for more information on webGL, go here.)

What's really neat about Zygote Body, is that you can hide/shade different body systems to explore in more detail. You can move the image around in 3 dimensions, zoom in and out, and get a really good view of anatomy. You can even search for body parts and turn the labels on and off.

There is also an Android app on the way.

This is a good resource for Biology, Anatomy, A&P and medical classes to use.

Endangered Species FactSheets

Kid's Planet has a great resource on endangered species of the world, E-Species Fact Files. The site has fact sheets on over 50 endangered species, organized by area of the world.

The site links to the Defenders of Wildlife site. Each fact sheet has photos, information on the habitat and dangers to the animal.

This is a great resource to use with any class to show students how important protecting these species is.

Virtual Owl Pellet Dissection

In today's ever shrinking education budgets, finding something free that can substitute for costly materials is always a good thing.

I use virtual labs and simulations in my physics classes often due to lack of lab equipment or safety concerns. My favorite is PhET.

One activity that I know a lot of Biology teachers do is the owl pellet dissection. However, owl pellets are not cheap and they are one use. I just learned about a virtual owl pellet site, KidWings, from Richard Byrne on his blog.

 The Virtual Owl Pellet Dissection lets students take apart an owl pellet and explore what the owl ate. The site is Flash based. It was fun working through the simulation.

The site also has other information about birds and is a great resource for science teachers.

Genome - resources about the National Genome project

Genome.gov is the National Institutes of Health site on the National Human Genome Research Institute.

The Education page on it has a huge amount of resources for educators, including fact sheets, genetics careers, all about the Genome project, webinars, lesson resources, links, and an online education kit about the project.

This is an excellent resource for Biology and Genetics teachers to get other resources, lesson ideas and more. This is an important topic that has scientific and ethical implemcations