Plant compensatory growth is a phenomenon of exaggerated vegetative growth that occurs in plants as a result of mechanical damage (e.g., cutting or browsing). Because shoots, leaves, and other plant parts grow larger on plants undergoing compensation, they typically fall outside of the normal ranges given in plant identification keys and confuse students who are attempting to classify them. Here, we describe the conundrum faced by students collecting compensatory materials and offer suggestions on how to help students identify their “plant-in-hand” and how to seize a teaching moment to examine and explain the underlying processes that lead to this fascinating plant response.

This exercise engages students in critically evaluating weight-loss products and programs. Specific objectives are to investigate, analyze, and substantiate claims made by the weight-loss industry and interpret how these claims may be fraudulent, misleading, or perhaps even truthful.

When describing biogeochemical transfers, textbook authors have often overstated the role of soil while neglecting the role of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, these errors align with naive biogeochemical intuitions. This article aims to increase awareness of the prevalence of such misconceptions and offers countermeasures. Avoiding these misconceptions becomes increasingly important as concerns over carbon emissions grow. In addition, because an accurate understanding of biogeochemical cycles can transform deeply held beliefs, successfully teaching this topic can have the collateral benefit of inspiring lasting interest in science.

Using visual aids in the instruction of biology is a technique with deep roots. Collections of historical images, many now in the public domain, are currently being digitized and made available online by several academic and commercial organizations. Unfortunately, the original indexes, guides, and catalogs for the materials are frequently inadequate, and in some instances border on the fraudulent. Careful examination of these archives by the skilled eyes of present-day biology educators is needed to uncover historical imagery that will contribute valuable information useful for contextualizing contemporary topics in the classroom.

A role-play of transcription and translation to synthesize a short polypeptide was enacted in the classroom. At the end, students were quizzed about what they had learned and surveyed for their satisfaction with the activity. Most students performed well on the factualcomprehension questions. Students' satisfaction with the activity was generally high.

In an age of enhanced visual technology, the use of visual supplements in the classroom has become increasingly effective in conveying information about complex biological concepts. What is more, many students feel the need to “see” concepts depicted in one form or another. Over many years of teaching biology at a university, I discovered the usefulness of incorporating simple, generic graphs into lectures and assignments to show relationships between assorted variables discussed in class. Here, I show how to illustrate a relationship between two vatiables on a single graph and integrate relationships for multiple related vatiables on a senes of “stacked” graphs. I also demonstrate how graphs can help make a distinction between two commonly confused concepts: negative correlation and negative feedback.

Fostering science literacy by engaging students as active participants and communicators of scientific ideas can enhance learning as well as a sense of personal investment. Science “zine” projects can be an effective way to structure this kind of participatory science literacy and flexibly build on specific course content as well as skills in the research, conceptualization, and communication of scientific ideas. When students are engaged as media producers and educators, their role and responsibility in the “ecology of scientific information” becomes more apparent and potentially more rewarding.

Understanding the scientific reasoning behind a laboratory procedure is critical to the student's understanding of the scientific process and has become increasingly important. in the introductory project-based laboratory curriculum at Brandeis University, we ask our students to write true scientific purposes for each laboratory in place of learning objectives. With discussion, feedback, and practice, we find that this simple exercise increases our students' understanding of the material and their ability to write abstracts and solidifies the underlying connections between multiweek procedures.