Biology laboratories are usually designed around convenient and available subjects. For example, for animal laboratories "Daphnia magna," "Drosophila melanogaster," frogs, rats, and mice are common animals that are relatively easy to obtain, relatively cheap, and consequently lend themselves well to laboratory experimentation. On many campuses, …

Described are projects and observations that can be conducted with the laboratory mouse to study mammalian growth and development. (RH)

Use in research, natural history, behavior and characteristics, care and maintenance, breeding, and classroom use of the Mongolian gerbil are discussed. (BB)

Consists of a survey, department by department, of the jobs for biologists at the National Museum of Natural History. (BB)

Described is the construction and use of an environmental garden. The garden serves as a source of both indoor and outdoor laboratory materials, including vascular plants, fungi, algae, mosses, zooplankton, and macroscopic invertebrates. (BB)

Provided is a discussion of items covering a variety of fascinating biological topics which include: the elasticity of the furcula of starlings in flight, beavers increasing the greenhouse effect, effective invaders, traveling birds, the cuckoo deception, competitive sperm, hearing springs, heat and sight, blinking as punctuation, mutations, and…

Presents a directed-inquiry activity to take students one step beyond observation of how living organisms capture prey. Uses a field lab based upon predator-prey relationships to enliven the teaching of food web concepts to non-science-major freshman undergraduates. Can also be used in teaching high school biology students through college science…

This laboratory exercise integrates the topics of cell structure, classification of living organisms, and evolution. It is suitable for secondary or college biology courses and was used in an interdisciplinary science course for nonscience majors. (BB)

Discusses the importance of student questions as tools of instruction and as indicators of student misconceptions. Suggests different ways in which students may gain an understanding of biological concepts through discussion of popular movies and biological problems. (CW)

Ideas intended for use in a high school biology laboratory are given. Swordtail fish are described as subjects for observation in animal behavior studies. (SA)

Ideas related to including ethology in high school biology programs are given. The methods of ethology and tips on how to communicate observations are briefly explained. (SA)

Compares different views of the role of sexual reproduction concerning the survival and evolution of species. Discusses the benefits and disadvantages of thelytoky, one nontraditional method of reproduction. (CW)

Discusses the emergence of the biology curriculum which replaced physiology, zoology, and botany in high school science courses and supplanted an early form of general science known as natural history. (RT)

This article presents a variety of topics discussed in this column and at a biology teachers' workshop concerning the quality and value of lab techniques used for teaching high school biology. Topics included are Drosophila salivary glands, sea urchins, innovations, dyes and networking. (CW)

The use of live animals in the secondary school laboratory is discussed along with suggestions for increasing the use of live animals and challenges to those teachers who restrict this use. (SA)