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Physics and Chemistry

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I teach all grade levels, I feel most confident in physics and astronomy, but I have degrees in all of the sciences so I'm confident in them all.

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Jordan Kincaid - I teach Biology 1/2 and Integrated Science 1/2, all grades. I most confident in Integrated Science because of graduate course work in environmental science. 

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Jordan Kincaid - I teach Biology 1/2 and Integrated Science 1/2, all grades. I most confident in Integrated Science because of graduate course work in environmental science. 

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Skyview High School

Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Integrated Science, and Math

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What is the skeletal system made of? What does the skeletal system do? At the simplest level, the skeleton is the framework that provides structure to the rest of the body and facilitates movement. The skeletal system includes over 200 bones, cartilage, and ligaments.

Read on to get 10 key facts about the human skeleton.

1. The Skeletal System Consists Of More Than Bones

When you look at the human skeleton the 206 bones and 32 teeth stand out. But look closer and you'll see even more structures. The human skeleton also includes ligaments and cartilage. Ligaments are bands of dense and fibrous connective tissue that are key to the function of joints. Cartilage is more flexible than bone but stiffer than muscle. Cartilage helps give structure to the larynx and nose. It is also found between the vertebrae and at the ends of bones like the femur.

2. The Adult Human Skeleton Is Made Up of 206 Bones

These bones provide structure and protection and facilitate motion. Bones articulate to form structures. The skull protects the brain and gives shape to the face. The thoracic cage surrounds the heart and lungs. The vertebral column, commonly called the spine, is formed by over 30 small bones. Then there are the limbs (upper and lower) and the girdles that attach the four limbs to the vertebral column.

3. The Skeleton Protects Vital Organs

The brain is surrounded by bones that form part of the skull. The heart and lungs are located within the thoracic cavity, and the vertebral column provides structure and protection for the spinal cord.

4. Interactions Between the Skeleton, Muscles, and Nerves Move the Body

How does the skeleton move? Muscles throughout the human body are attached to bones. Nerves around a muscle can signal the muscle to move. When the nervous system sends commands to skeletal muscles, the muscles contract. That contraction produces movement at the joints between bones.

5. Bones Are Grouped into the Axial Skeleton and the Appendicular Skeleton

Bones of the appendicular skeleton facilitate movement, while bones of the axial skeleton protect internal organs. All skeletal structures belong to either the appendicular skeleton (girdles and limbs) or to the axial skeleton (skull, vertebral column, and thoracic cage).

6. Bones Can Be Classified into Five Types

Bones of the human skeletal system are categorized by their shape and function into five types. The femur is an example of a long bone. The frontal bone is a flat bone. The patella, also called the knee cap, is a sesamoid bone. Carpals (in the hand) and tarsals (in the feet) are examples of short bones.

7. Long Bones Have Three Main Parts to Them

The outside of a long bone consists of a layer of compact bone surrounding spongy bone. Inside a long bone is a medullary cavity filled with yellow bone marrow.

8. Some Bones Produce Red Blood Cells

Red bone marrow is soft tissue located in networks of spongy bone tissue inside some bones. In adults the red marrow in bones of the cranium, vertebrae, scapulae, sternum, ribs, pelvis, and at the epiphyseal ends of the large long bones produce blood cells.

9. Some Joints Don't Move or Move Very Little

One way to classify joints is by range of motion. Immovable joints include the sutures of the skull, the articulations between teeth and the mandible, and the joint located between the first pair of ribs and the sternum. Some joints have slight movement; an example is the distal joint between the tibia and fibula. Joints that allow a lot of motion (think of the shoulder, wrist, hip, and ankle) are located in the upper and lower limbs.

10. Infants Have More Bones Than Adults

An infant skeleton has almost a hundred more bones than the skeleton of an adult. Bone formation begins at about three months gestation and continues after birth into adulthood. An example of several bones that fuse over time into one bone is the sacrum. At birth the sacrum is five vertebrae with discs in between them. The sacrum is fully fused into one bone usually by the fourth decade of life.

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Overview of Skeleton | Learn Skeleton Anatomy

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Learn anatomy of the skeleton for free. What is the skeletal system? How does the human skeleton work? The skeleton provides structure and facilitates movement.

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Putting my students on a schedule so they know what type of activity they will be doing each day.

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Putting my students on a schedule so they know what type of activity they will be doing each day.

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Jack Hutt - El Dorado High School

I would say my specialty course is integrated sciences because it is a combination of physics and chemistry. My education is in chemistry so I feel like I have the most knowledge in this course.

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Ashley Park - I teach Biology 1/2 and Integrated Science 1/2, I fell most comfortable with Biology

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Ashley Park - I teach Biology 1/2 and Integrated Science 1/2, I fell most comfortable with Biology

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Jim Tobin -  Maya HS - Anatomy & Physiology / Integrated Science

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Jim Tobin -  Maya HS - Anatomy & Physiology / Integrated Science

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I focus primarily on Chemistry and I mostly have 10th and 11th grade students. I feel the most confidant in because this is what I focused on in undergrad and grad school.

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McEntire, Mark

Apache Trail

Biology, Forensic Science

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Jordan Kincaid, Maya High School, Science

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Jordan Kincaid, Maya High School, Science

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Biology & Anatomy

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Jack Hutt - El Dorado High School - Biology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Integrated Sciences

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Jack Hutt - El Dorado High School - Biology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Integrated Sciences

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Ashley Park - West Phoenix HS - Year 6 teaching biology and integrated science

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Ashley Park - West Phoenix HS - Year 6 teaching biology and integrated science

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Jason Durivage, Mission Heights Prep, Chemistry, Physics, and Conceptual

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Jason Durivage, Mission Heights Prep, Chemistry, Physics, and Conceptual

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Steele & Biggs from Ridgeveiew College Prep.                            

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Ashley Park - West Phoenix High School - 6th year

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Ashley Park - West Phoenix High School - 6th year

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Fortino - Crestview Preparatory - 1st yr here at Crestview 17 year at Leona - I teach Bio 1 & 2, A & P 1 & 2, Integrated 1 & 2 and Forensic Sci 1 &  2

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Fortino - Crestview Preparatory - 1st yr here at Crestview 17 year at Leona - I teach Bio 1 & 2, A & P 1 & 2, Integrated 1 & 2 and Forensic Sci 1 &  2

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I will assign students parts of the notes and give them time to break it down (or make a poster) and then have them present it to the class so that they are teaching each other the content. Also I make sure I am never going over homework by myself, but I assign students questions they know on the homework and have them explain what the answers should be.

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Creating autonomy is hard with our population, however consistency and creating norms is helping. Students are guiding themselves minimally right now however we are working to use more towards their own autonomy.

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I have been trying to get students adjusted to a new teacher and how I run my classroom, as I continue this I plan to let them take more and more control of their education.

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The expectation has been set in science classes that students pull what they think is necessary to know(with some guidance, like guiding questions), and then they share with me what they found important as I facilitate the sharing of knowledge and help clarify misunderstandings. This works well with EdPuzzle Live, too.

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Not particularly well, I'm always looking for strategies and ways to implement them... So I very much look forward to seeing what others have to say.

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I spend maybe 20-30 minutes per day "teaching" in front of the classroom -- and with that I use Pear Deck. Most of my class time is spent facilitating assignments and assisting students with their work as needed.

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I want to concur with Victoria - I've added at least one reading / writing for every topic and they do that first before the notes - I used to do notes first and they seem to be doing much better doing the reading and questions first

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I feel like students know our routine, so they are able to come in ready to work. They definitely work harder than I do in their own education.

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My goal with our instructional coach for block 1 was 80/20 student lift. Working with her, I worked on giving up control and now students do most of the work in the class while I act as a facilitator. We are also working to develop content specific sentence stem posters to help our students develop their academic language skills.

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There are many opportunities to incorporate reading and writing into our lesson plans. For example, providing background information about the topic we will be experimenting on during a lab, or providing a real-world topic about content we are learning about, and provide practice questions that go with that reading.

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I've still had good luck with using reading an article (tied in to whatever topic we are covering) and answering a question to get students reading and writing at the start of class. I have a stack of essays on the importance of DNA that were submitted today.

With my students who do struggle I change the level of article I'm asking them to read and alter the question.

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The reading and annotating has improved across the board but MANY are still struggling with the writing side of things (our school ELA IXL average is 400!) In my 1st hour alone out of 32 students 19 are SEI and most are Emergent and Preemergent - So I do a lot of short science readings usually as bell ringers that are at the lower levels but sill content specific / related - I renewed my edhelper subscription and it has been a life saver - even my higher level students struggle with the reading / writing at a 8th grade level

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Students are reading almost everyday in the classroom as they use their Discovery Resource to complete activities. Students are writing notes based on those activities as well as sharing their ideas with the class. To support struggling students Discovery Ed. offers two levels of reading difficulty along with Spanish translation, so I show students how to change the "language" option to suit their needs. Also providing a binder resource with sentence stems and question stems.

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I really enjoyed giving relevance to the students by explaining to them how science and technology affect society. In my Biology 2 class we just covered the DNA/RNA structure and genetics unit. So to increase relevance we just had a class discussion on the ethics and potential consequences of gene editing technology as well as cloning and what they could do to change society within the next 10-15 years. Students were very engaged and eager to share opinions.

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Reading and writing are done daily in my class whether its based on notes or a Powerpoint. I've noticed that students seem to have a tough time with comprehending what they read. I have been helping students by using the guided notes to show them what they should be getting out of each lesson.

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Reading and writing is a daily norm in my classroom. They are held accountable - I use the reading for introduction of concepts and/or selecting intriguing text that attracts students attention and formulate questions

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Reading is easily incorporated into my classroom by allowing my students to always preface a new topic with reading an article that relates to it. Meanwhile writing is incorporated but I have to be more intentional about it since it is not my strength. I work closely with my curriculum coaches for support with making robust writing assignments.

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I have totally normalized 20 minutes of silent reading at the beginning of class prior to the lesson, followed by 20 minutes of writing. There's a bit of foot-dragging sometimes, but they expect it now and it has been overall quite smooth.

For those students who struggle with reading, especially ELL students, I assign Language Level B readings and will sometimes allow ELL students to read the spanish version alongside the level B version.

For students who struggle with writing, we are developing content-area specific sentence stems to help students get off the ground. For ELL writers, I often have them focus on vocabulary lists and defining new terms.

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I assign a reading/actively learn every day, students must read and write responses in complete sentences in order to receive credit for the assignment. I do teach basic grammar constructs every day as well, just a quick reminder on their slides.

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It has been a it of a struggle. Most of our students have low reading and comprehension scores so I have been breaking it down and adding more each week.

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Both reading and writing are a constant in my classroom. Like Kincaid, we have been working closely with the English department to have a campus-wide standard of writing so we can be sure students are constantly being exposed to consistent information and expectations.

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My classes all do at least one interactive type lab each week at least - though some are more a WebQuest's or research based type projects:

In A& P they will be doing a senses lab testing their 5 senses next week, they just finished a research project about neurological diseases where they created a slides presentation about it - In Integrated 2 we just finished a lab about the effect of gravity on their weight on all of the planets (I provide the gravitational constant for each planet) and the effect of the different gravities on the distance they can jump (they jump 4 times and average for here on earth) - next week they will be doing a hands on lab looking at the properties of magnetism - to describe a few :) and the kids seem to really enjoy them

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Phet Lab is always my go-to for interactive lessons.

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Using spheres and light to help demonstrate our solar system use of gravity, planetary motions, and light absorption models

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We use GIZMOS(explorelearning) for biology simulations that help students see what is happening, especially for topics where lab materials or time is a constraint. We also use Jigsaw a lot in science classrooms to make sure everyone has the information they need without getting bogged down with a million assignments. Jigsaw using team created posters help provide students with self-created anchor charts.

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I've been using the NOVA Evolution Lab throughout my Biology unit on Evolution. For the ecology unit, ASU has a fantastic 360-degree VR Biome program that lets students explore six different biomes in the first person perspective as well as the HHMI Interactive BiomeViewer.

For IntSci, I've been using the Solar System Scope (shared in prior prompt) for studying planets, stars, and constellations, as well as the "100,000 Stars" interactive program for studying stars.

Challenges: I've had to write my own workbooks with very clear step-wise instructions for using the programs. They are a bit intimidating at first for some of my students.

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The lessons are sometimes are a little basic/surface level for what I am seeking for. The lesson plans and worksheets included can be a little vague.

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Labs that I use help the students interact with the content. As well as during the ecology unit, I will play short clips of planet earth and have the students identify the predator/prey in the video and they get very involved. Besides this I believe Blooket is my number one way to get engagement fast if I want the students to have a brain break but still interact with the material.

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We did a natural selection lab today where I had students camouflage butterflies through my classroom. Our principal walked in and had to pretend to be a massive bird of prey, and it was great watching the kids sweat when he'd walk by their butterfly.

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We made a model of the brain out of play doh. I also bought chemistry model sets to use for interactive lessons and hands on labs. I've seen higher levels of engagement with these activities that I have tried so far.

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I haven't used much interactive material yet so far but I think simulations are a great resource as a supplemental lab activity.

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Its also launching point for lesson planning and mapping.

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Anything we can do to be hands on always makes the lesson fun. We made brain caps last week where the different regions of the brain are labeled. In integrated science, students are learning about the EM spectrum and created posters that will be placed along a model EM wave spectrum that we created running part of the length of the hall.

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I haven't been using Discovery Ed, I don't recall seeing a lot for biology in it when I looked but I may have missed something. It was my first year teaching and I was pretty overwhelmed.

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I have not been using Discovery Ed because I did not know we already had access to it. I was actually going to ask my Curriculum coach about getting access to using it, and did not know it was already available!

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I have access but haven't really used it much yet - there haven't been may things that were correlating with my class needs so far and many needed the questions / activates built and I've found EdPuzzle has been way more useful from a time set up and content specific standpoint

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Discovery is our main source for information gathering. Students read and annotate independently, sometimes I print the text to provide the physical paper. Students pull information necessary for the topic and then share out to create collaborative notes.

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I am unfortunately not doing CER in my classroom as much as I probably should. We mostly do CER occasionally when we do class discussions about topics such as the ethics of gene editing. During the discussion/written responses students have to support their claims/opinions with evidence and reasoning.

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I started here last Thursday, I have not had a chance to implement a Discovery Ed lesson but I did have a chance to look it over. I hope to use some of the material soon.

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I had not been using Discovery Ed yet because I did not know we had access to it. However now I will be adding it to my lessons, especially for reading articles for my students.

Before I was just looking up articles related to our topic and making my own questions for it.

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I use DiscEd for just about everything except lab work. I use it for lesson planning, making presentations, assigning readings, prompting writing assignments, and administering quizzes and exams.

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lastly here is a blank basic template if anyone needs it for CER

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Obviously final exams are done in DiscoveryyEd. I use it for supplemental assignments that enhance our in class activities.

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I am a first year teacher and have not been granted access to it yet

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here is the key for that into one I posted earlier - we do this one first in all my classes before they do a more formal version... and FYI Teachers pay teachers have a TON of CER resources including free ones!

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Intro Activity #5 - B1 - Warly Discoveries in Science - CER Practice.pdf

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this is the general rubric I also give them a copy of and I mostly just change the point amounts depending on the assignment but I pretty much use this so they know what's expected (all these links are on "view only" feel free to make copes for yourself)

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My school had students use ThinkCERCA last year, to teach them the CERCA format.

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I work CER into article analysis, labs, and as part of the lecture format. I'll present a situation, or a claim from a scientist and ask them to produce their own claim, identify evidence or what they would need to act as evidence, or work out the reasoning before we move on. It looks like Maria Fortino and I also are working with the same CER practice worksheet.

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When presented with scholarly articles students analyze the information using a CER template. They then share their claim in a class discussion and need to provide the evidence and reasoning behind it. When they don't, they are challenged by other student who will ask questions about what there evidence is and how that evidence leads to their reasoning.

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I like to use the CER on a topic that they could maximize what they have learned - or to bring together what they have been learning to provide an in-depth answer.

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this is the short explanation I use at the start and everyone has a copy in their science binders

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CER in weekly quiz and for a lab, to produce an original idea and supporting the understanding of the scientific method.

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A lot of my labs especially the newtons laws lab are set up in CER format instead of the sci method and the first week of the block we start a into activity of what is CER and they do at least 1 activity every week as an assignment / lab or bell ringer - I've attached some general ones I use ... I am going to add copies of the directions and rubric I use also...

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Early Discoveries in Science - CER Practice - Google Docs.pdf

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I try to incorporate CER into our reading to make it more meaningful and impactful to the lesson.

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I did a bellringer that was C.E.R for the scientific method by introducing a problem and having students design an experiment to solve the problem. Then they explained why they chose the solution that they did.

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Formal writing assignments in tandem with English-department standards. Paragraph prompts such as: "Why is science important for society?" or "How does mutation affect evolution?" and then using the readings from the day/week for evidence. Emphasizing 4-sentence structure (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: Summary, Reasoning: Connect). 20 minutes for reading each day; 20 minutes for writing.

Break down the process into each individual sentence. Give sentence stems examples for claim. Emphasize quotation for evidence. Rephrase/interpret quote in own words for Reasoning 1. Connect interpretation to claim for Reasoning 2.

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Using labs to formulate claims and gather evidence. Then in their unit exams students complete a C.E.R. using the material they have gathered as part of their written response.

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This is used in my classroom during the conclusions of my labs, they identify the claim of the lab, evidence that supported it, and reason with it. As well, I have students read science articles and complete a CER worksheet to help guide their reading.

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I incorporate it into their weekly labs and weekly article analysis.

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I give the students a CER as part of their weekly quiz!

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now that IT got edpuzzle unblocked here at Crestview it is really helpful because so many of the videos are the current ones I was using anyway and so many have the questions already set up and ready to go - I have also added 1 or 2 at the end of each unit for students to utilize for review / study for quizzes and the midterm and eventually the final

This is a resource for A & P that I found that has links to free resources that can be used by a teacher that covers what is on our maps

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Copy of Copy of Anatomy and Physiology Course Overview and Lesson Links

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I have been using Ed Puzzle and Quizizz review games to help solidify what they have been learning during the week.

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Science News has great articles on various topics you can search. There are often leveled readings and sometimes Spanish versions as well. These work great for alternate readings that are different from reading in Discovery Ed.

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Science News Explores publishes news from all fields of science for students and other curious individuals from middle school and up, with resources for parents and educators.

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Great for Biology 1 or Biology 2 . There are some great interactives for some concepts that are harder to visualize such as Protein Synthesis - Transcription/Translation.

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Learn.Genetics [Internet]. Salt Lake City (UT): Genetic Science Learning Center; 2018 [cited 2023 Nov 27] Available from https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/

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Helpful for any labs or readings you need.

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Biology Teaching Resources

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I have taught biology for 30+ years and have uploaded and shared resources throughout my career. You are free to use and edit any of the documents. Tests and answer keys can be purchased from TpT.

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The Biology Corner - Resources for Teachers

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Resources for biology students that include worksheets, labs, and student activities. Find everything you need for your biology lessons here!!

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Using Gizmos for balancing chemical equations so they can visually see the importance of the law of conservation of mass

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Reading Material: https://www.snexplores.org

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We've all heard it before: "It's in your genes."

If you're lucky, a parent or neighbor is trying to explain one of your good quirks, not one of your goofy ones. "Your father could hit the ball out of the park, too," someone might say. Or you have the same unruly curls as your mom. Thankfully, that someone hasn't heard you and your dad snore.

But what if it's not in your genes. What if it's on your genes?

In 1866, Gregor Mendel showed that pea plants inherit physical and other traits from their parents according to very precise laws of nature. In 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan showed that genes exist on chromosomes, and in 1952 Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey showed that DNA within a gene carries traits from parent to child. When someone tells you, "It's in your genes," they're saying that the part of your chromosome responsible for your quirk matches that part of the chromosome on your equally quirky parent.

Except when it doesn't.

Imagine two mice. One looks normal. It's tiny and brown. The other is fat and has orange fur. The orange mouse not only looks weird, its weight makes it more prone to diabetes and cancer.

The biggest surprise isn't the differences between these mice - it's the similarities. The mice have the same DNA in the same order on the same chromosomes. They're genetically identical. The difference between the mice isn't in their genes; it's on them.

Methyl groups - chemical clusters each made of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms - latch onto DNA near a gene. Methyl groups act like switches, turning a gene on or off. In the case of the fat, orange mouse, scientist Randy Jirtle and his colleagues at Duke University used methyl groups to turn off something called the Agouti (a-goo-tee) gene. How? It was pretty simple.

In 2003, Jirtle fed pregnant mice a particular diet that turned off the Agouti gene in the mama mice's babies. The Agouti gene controls fur color and the feeling of fullness after eating. With the gene switched on, the baby mice grew into orange adults that could never eat enough to be satisfied. As a comparison, the scientists fed a vitamin-rich mouse diet to pregnant mice that were genetically identical to the first group. The Agouti gene was switched off in the babies of those moms who had eaten the vitamin-rich chow. Those pups developed brown fur and a feeling of fullness after eating.

Same genes, different methyl patterns - very different looking mice. Without changing the DNA in the Agouti gene, Jirtle and his colleagues showed the power of what scientists call an epigenetic change.

"Epigenetic literally means 'above the genes,'" explains Jirtle. Epigenetic changes don't rewrite DNA, the genetic code. Instead, the activity of the genes is altered. Genes contain the recipe for proteins. Every time a gene is turned on, it makes its particular protein. But how much - if any - of the protein a gene makes and when it makes the protein can be altered by the addition or deletion of methyl groups.

In October 2010, Margaret Morris and her colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, took epigenetic research a step further. She showed that babies could inherit epigenetic changes - a scenario never before imagined by geneticists.

"We asked whether the diet of the father might affect his babies," Morris said.

She took a bunch of healthy, identical male rats and put half on a high-fat diet. The other half ate regular food. Males on high-fat diets became overweight and diabetic (a common complication of obesity in humans). Males on regular diets grew into normal rats. All males mated with genetically identical females who had been raised on a standard rodent diet. Later, Morris examined the daughters of these rats. Would the obese fathers' weight problems affect their offspring? Nothing learned from Mendel and his peas would make scientists expect that it would.

But Mendel and his peas don't tell us about epigenetics.

Morris found that none of the rat daughters developed a weight problem, which isn't surprising given what we know about standard genetics. However, daughters of fat dads did develop health problems related to obesity.

"Female baby rats looked as though they were on their way to becoming diabetic. They couldn't produce enough insulin," explains Morris.

Insulin is a hormone needed for the body to use glucose - also known as blood sugar. Glucose is the body's energy source. A shortage of insulin or the body's inability to use insulin effectively causes diabetes, a very serious disease.

Genetic changes clearly didn't cause the daughters' insulin problems, because the scientists had used genetically identical rats. Instead, fat dads created sperm cells with different methyl patterns on their DNA. Daughters inherited their father's epigenetic changes. And because of changes in methyl patterns on the genes, daughters also inherited their dads' health problems.

Foods that our parents eat before we're born or while we're still inside the womb can affect epigenetic switches. Smoking, drinking alcohol and aging can all cause epigenetic changes too.

But can behavior create epigenetic changes? Michael Meaney and his colleagues at McGill University in Montreal answered that question in 2004 with rats.

Some mother rats lick their babies a lot. Other mothers ignore their babies. Different kinds of mothering cause babies to become different kinds of adults. No one thinks adult rats remember whether their mothers licked them. But research has shown that licked babies grow up to be braver in the face of stress. Ignored babies are more scared as adults.

As Meaney suspected, epigenetics played a role in this difference. The scientists found distinct differences between methyl patterns in the brain cells of licked babies and those of unlicked babies. The mother's licking flipped switches on the baby's gene that shapes how rats respond to stress - showing that the behavior of one animal can sculpt the epigenetic clay of another animal.

But Meaney and his colleagues didn't stop there.

The scientists believed they could flip gene switches on fearful rats, causing them to become brave. And in 2007, the scientists discovered they were right. By injecting a chemical into rats, the scientists wiped out the animals' methyl markers and changed rat behavior. Scared rats became brave.

The ability to chemically flip methyl switches can help treat human diseases. For instance, doctors can cure specific forms of leukemia (cancer of the blood or bone marrow) by using chemicals to flip methyl switches. Other scientists, including Randy Jirtle, are exploring the role of epigenetics in diseases like schizophrenia (an illness marked by deterioration of the thought processes), depression (an illness characterized by a feeling of such sadness that the sufferer can't live a normal life) and autism (an illness that makes it difficult to communicate with other people).

Jirtle explains, "I want to find the genes in humans that are involved in brain development, which, as a consequence, are involved in just about every neurological disorder we have." And once Jirtle finds the genes, he'll look for the methyl groups that affect them. He believes he may find cures this way.

So why are gene switches so flippable? Maybe the answer lies in common sense rather than in lab studies. Think of this: Environments change constantly - forests change to grasslands, and grasslands change to deserts. Environments within and around our cells change, thanks to parasites and viruses. Social environments change too: A nurturing environment can become hostile with a stroke of bad luck. No matter how we look at it, humans and other organisms live in constantly changing environments.

On the other hand, an organism's genome - or set of genetic instructions - doesn't change quickly. For example, humans now look a lot like humans from 200,000 years ago, even though parents pass on a jumbled mixture of genes to their offspring. How does something as steady as a genome cope with something as changeable as the environment? Perhaps epigenetics is the answer.

Moshe Szyf at McGill University says that epigenetics may offer a way to help our unchanging genes cope with sudden changes in their, or our, environment.

Changing what's on our genes appears to be easier than changing what's in them. And that may help explain how life so readily adapts to our ever-changing environment.

Power words

gene: A segment of DNA that codes, or holds instructions, for a protein. Offspring inherit genes from their parents. Genes influence how an organism looks and behaves.

DNA: Short for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA consists of four main components called nucleotides. These nucleotides are: A (adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine) and G (guanine). As the nucleotides pair together in long chains, they form a double helix shape, which resembles a twisted ladder.

chromosome: A single piece of coiled DNA found in a cell's nucleus. A chromosome is generally X-shaped in animals and plants. Some segments of DNA in a chromosome are genes. Other segments of DNA in a chromosome are landing pads for proteins. The function of other segments of DNA in chromosomes is still not fully understood by scientists.

diabetes: A disease caused by the body's inability to make or properly use insulin, an important hormone.

insulin: A hormone made by the human body that takes glucose, or sugar, from the blood and stores it in the liver and muscles.

glucose: Also known as blood sugar. Glucose provides the body with energy.

sperm cell: Male reproductive cells.

neurological: Having to do with the body's nervous system, which receives and transmits information. The brain and the spinal cord are part of the nervous system.

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We've all heard it before: "It's in your genes."

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This is the first set of guided notes for my anatomy and physiology course

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https://openstax.org/k12/anatomy-and-physiology

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OpenStax | Free Textbooks Online with No Catch

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OpenStax offers free college textbooks for all types of students, making education accessible & affordable for everyone. Browse our list of available subjects!

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Solar System Scope - interactive resource for studying stars, planets, constellations, etc.

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Online 3D simulation of the Solar System and night sky in real time - the Sun, planets, dwarf planets, comets, stars and constellations

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I have increased my use of content specific readings and questions and requiring annotation which I've been teaching and re-enforcing how to do that with science readings and students are becoming more proficient in their annotating but also actually using it when answering questions

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edpuzzle, kahn academy, guided notes, hands on activities

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I use magic school AI; it's made things so much easier and smoother for creating work. They even have a 'Lab Generator' honestly; it's the best thing I've seen.

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PBS NOVA Labs: The Evolution Lab

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Discover how you’re connected to everything that’s alive and everything that’s ever lived.

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Watching students get competitive about balancing chemical equations!

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Ethics Conversations

In Bio 2 we've been talking about biotech and I had some awesome participation and involvement in our conversations regarding ethics, especially cloning. A lot of interest in debate around human cloning.

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The students are reading more and using that to acquire knowledge rather than being heavily lecture based

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My freshman are becoming more acclimated with high school, some behaviors have improved, and students are more comfortable with our classroom routines and asking for help.