Lesson Vault
Math and science resources for teachers and professors
Math and science resources for teachers and professors
I remember early on in my biology teaching career, I had a student tell me that he enjoyed my homework assignment. That was the first time I'd heard someone say that, and it felt amazing! That's when I knew I was on to something.
Now I love to share free science and math lesson plans, student handouts, and other educational content with other educators and education designers. If you're one of them, I hope you'll browse this section and take what you wish. You're welcome to remix them as well - I'm excited for you to email me and let me know what you made.
A note on AI use: I sometimes use AI for brainstorming, refining ideas, and writing or organizing passages. However, at the very least, I always refine the final product myself - and I would never share anything here that I hadn't used in the classroom! So rest assured that while some individual passages may be AI-generated, everything here has the human touch.
I teach some of my classes (including General Biology and Ecology) as flipped classrooms, where students watch lectures as homework. That way, we have time for activities, demonstrations, and project work in class. Here are some demonstrations I've used in class.
9th Grade Science - Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
11th Grade Math - Sampling Methods
Ecology - Countercurrent Heat Exchangers
General Biology I - How DNA is Made
General Biology I - Evolutionary Inefficiencies
General Biology I - Protostome Phyla
General Biology II - Post-Midterm Activity: Debate
General Biology II - Plant Growth: Scutoids
Want more? Here is a folder of more General Biology lesson plans and a folder of more Ecology lesson plans.
Environmental Biology - Climate Change
Environmental Biology - Food and Food Production
Environmental Biology - Invasive Species
Microbiology - An Invisible World
Microbiology - Prokaryotic Diversity, Part 1
Microbiology - Microbial Ecology and Applied Microbiology
Precalculus - What Is Calculus?
Precalculus - Introduction to Functions
Precalculus - Domain and Range
9th Grade Science - Law of Reflection
Want more? I'm including a link to my folders of more 11th grade math and precalculus PowerPoints here.
Many of my labs are based on kits from Carolina Biological Company. However, I don't always have the materials or there isn't a kit that is exactly what I want to do. Then I get creative.
General Biology I - The Scientific Method
General Biology II - Angiosperms
I make trivia competitions on topics from my lectures. I use the trivia platform Quizizz. I like to hold these competitions throughout the semester, so each folder has multiple trivia games on various chapters.
General Biology I Trivia Folder
General Biology II Trivia Folder
Citizen Science Project: My General Biology II students practice collecting citizen science data using the GLOBE Observer app. Here are the assignment instructions.
Insect Collecting Project: Here is some information for my insect collection project for my Ecology class: The introductory handout, the collecting instructions, pinning instructions, identification instructions, labeling instructions, and the rubric.
Wikipedia Editing Project: Here is the dashboard from my Wikipedia project for my Microbiology class.
The following resources are not my original work. However, I am sharing them in case they are of use to you. Wiley University is a proud OER school, meaning that our students use free, online, Creative Commons-licensed textbooks. This saves our students a lot of money. I am sharing my favorite OER textbooks for each class.
Ecology: Nature Education Knowledge Project Library. Not a traditional textbook, but a storehouse of articles, many of which align with ecology classroom topics.
Environmental Biology: Empowering Stewards of Nature: Lessons from our Web of Life. 2020. Graham.
General Biology I and II: Openstax Biology 2e. 2018, updated 2021. Clark, Douglas, and Choi.
Microbiology: Microbiology: Canadian Edition. 2019. Keenleyside.
Nutrition: Human Nutrition. University of Hawai'i at Manoa. 2020. Farnum, Leu, Meinke, Parslow, Robertson, and Tepper.
Organelle Go Fish Game - I share this with my freshman biology class to review the organelles of the eukaryotic cell.
Density Challenge Escape Room - This worksheet for 9th grade science has students calculate density to escape from a crash landed spaceship on Mars.
Design a Bacterium - This game for General Biology II helps students learn bacterial structures by deciding which structures they would need to overcome different hostile environments.
Origin of Life Debate: Iron-Sulfur World vs. Prebiotic Soup - This activity for General Biology I helps students learn about the origins of life by debating two competing hypotheses. The simplified version includes a handout with arguments students can use; for advanced classes, students can do independent research and form their own arguments.
Phylogeny Line Up Game - This game is used for review in General Biology II and is similar to the birthday line-up icebreaker game, with a plant phylogeny twist.
Habitat Suitability Index Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2 - Uses the Alligator Suitability Index packet from South Florida Water Management District. These are used in my Ecology class to help students understand the different factors that go into population distribution and abundance, calculate these factors, and simulate real-world decision making.
Mystery Outbreak: Coastal Illnesses and Wildlife Die-Off - A midterm review activity for my microbiology class, to refresh students on organisms they previously learned in class.
Mystery Outbreak: Cave Explorers and Unexplained Illness - A midterm review activity for my microbiology class, to refresh students on organisms they previously learned in class.
Truth Table Detective Mysteries - A worksheet for 10th grade math that allows students to practice truth tables.
Rocketship Function Transformation - An activity for precalculus that allows students to practice function transformation by drawing a rocketship on graph paper.
Population Dynamics Lecture.mp4
Ecology: Exploitative Interactions (lecture in three parts)
12 Exploitative Interactions Part 1 What's In My Brain.mp4
12 Exploitative Interactions Part 2 What's For Dinner.mp4
12 Exploitative Interactions Part 3 Can I Hide Behind You.mp4
The picture above is with Professor Linda Woods and Dr. Hemantha Aranwela-Gamage before graduation in 2022.