Lesson OverviewSummary This activity connects the engineered oil-eating abilities of microbes to large-scale bioremediation efforts. Students will observe microbes break down oil in water over the course of a few days. They will also design and observe experimental...
Programming Phototaxis
Lesson OverviewSummary This is an open-ended programming lesson that models cell movement towards light. In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea of outlining a program as a series of scenarios and responses. They are also exposed to the engineering method...
Programming Module
Lesson OverviewSummary This programming lesson was designed to quickly teach the basics of programming a LEGO Mindstorm Robot in Open Roberta. It teaches programming through a series of programs. Many are purposefully “broken” to allow students to identify issues and...
Programming Chemotaxis
Lesson OverviewSummary This is a programming lesson that models cell movement up a chemical gradient, model with the chemotaxis mat that has a white to black gradient printed on it. In this lesson, students build on the idea of outlining a program as a series of...
Physarum Chemotaxis 2
Lesson OverviewSummary This activity builds on the first physarum chemotaxis experiment. This iteration of experiments is a process that scientists and cellular engineers engage in regularly. Using computational thinking, students look for patterns in data from the...
Physarum Chemotaxis 1
Lesson OverviewSummary This activity is designed as an open-ended exploration into physarum preferences by observing its chemotaxis. Students first observe that physarum will move towards oats, and then design experiments to determine its preference by observing its...
Mystery Program
Lesson OverviewSummary This is a quick demo to introduce students to the Lego Mindstorm EV3 and the concept of programming. In this lesson, students will make observations about how a robot moves and reacts to different stimuli in order to reverse engineer the...
Model Organisms
Lesson OverviewSummary In this activity, students select a model organism and brainstorm possible strengths and limitations of using this model in scientific experiments.For editable worksheets and powerpoints please login here.Models have strengths and weaknesses....
Hydra Self-Assembly
Lesson OverviewSummary This activity connects single-celled organisms and their programming with more complicated multicellular organisms, like hydra or human beings. Students will break down living hydra into a ball of single cells, completely dismantling its...
Final Challenges
Lesson OverviewSummary This is a great conclusion to a unit about cell biology, genetic engineering, or cellular engineering. Students are asked to program a robot to solve a challenge mat modeled after a real world problem that might be solved by cellular...