NSU Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice (FCE&SCJ)

Storytelling is the easiest way to become a more effective teacher. Tying a concept to a memorable story is the best method of engaging your students and ensuring they will never forget the importance and relevance of the concept. This book contains 50 stories directly tied to content taught in biology. These stories are ready to use - read them to your students, paraphrase them in your own words, or use the information to create materials for your courses. The table of contents lists an order of topics that follows nearly every general biology textbook, with relevant stories for each topic. Stories include the Radium Girls (radiation), Genesis Burkett (osmosis), Johnny Appleseed (fermentation), Nancy Wexler and Huntington's Disease (genetics), the first conviction based on DNA fingerprinting (biotech), when humans started wearing clothes (evolution), egret plume hats (ecology), and many more. Some of the stories can be tied to more than one concept, providing a great way to help students integrate concepts from across your curriculum.

How to increase students' interest and engagement in science is a challenge shared by teachers around the world. Designing effective science lesson plans using drama and role play requires expertise across two very different subject areas and, as a consequence, many science teachers find it difficult to incorporate this technique into their teaching.This book provides busy teachers with ready-made lesson plans for teaching many abstract scientific principles in a fun and novel way that really engages students. Drawing on and combining the knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics education specialists with drama education experts, this book covers topics taught widely in the sciences with pupils aged 11-16.The editors and contributors give a broad background to the value of drama and role play in the teaching of science, including a section summarising, for the non-drama specialist, the main techniques that will be used throughout the book. They also provide guidance on how teachers who have enjoyed using the lesson plans within the book can design their own drama and role play activities.