🧬 Biology lesson plans
Free, standards-aligned high school Biology lesson plans. Each one is a full, ready-to-teach plan with an objective, direct instruction, activities, and formative assessment. Make a free account to unlock the printable worksheet, slides, and unit test for any lesson.
Matter Cycles, Energy Flows: Modeling Ecosystems with the 10% Rule and Biogeochemical Cycles
Students will develop and use models — food webs, energy/biomass pyramids, and a carbon-cycle diagram — to explain why energy flows one-way through an ecosystem (with ~90% lost as…
Read the full lesson →Reading the Tree of Life: Common Ancestry, Cladograms, and the Virus Question
Students will analyze fossil, anatomical, embryological, biogeographic, and molecular evidence to construct and interpret cladograms and phylogenetic trees that support common anc…
Read the full lesson →Natural and Artificial Selection: How Populations Change
Students will analyze data on trait frequency shifts (peppered moths, tuskless elephants, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, domesticated crops) to explain how natural and artificial…
Read the full lesson →Meiosis and the Machinery of Genetic Variation
Students will model meiosis I and II using chromosome manipulatives to explain how crossing over and independent assortment generate genetic variation, and will interpret karyotyp…
Read the full lesson →Probability and Inheritance: From Punnett Squares to Pedigrees to Human Disease Risk
Students will use probability and Punnett squares to predict offspring genotype and phenotype ratios for dominant/recessive, codominant (ABO blood type), and incomplete-dominance…
Read the full lesson →Tracking Matter and Energy Through Photosynthesis and Respiration
Students will model photosynthesis and cellular respiration as coupled processes by (1) writing and balancing both equations with correct chemical formulas, (2) tracing individual…
Read the full lesson →The Cell Cycle, DNA Replication, and How One Cell Becomes a Tissue
Students will model and explain the events of the cell cycle — including DNA replication during S-phase, chromosome separation in mitosis, and cytokinesis — and use those events t…
Read the full lesson →From Gene to Protein: DNA, RNA, and the Molecular Machinery of Life
Students will model DNA structure and trace a specific gene through transcription and translation to explain how the sequence of nucleotides in DNA directs the sequence of amino a…
Read the full lesson →Homeostasis, Membrane Transport, and the Properties of Water
Students will argue from evidence how the phospholipid bilayer, passive and active transport, and the unique properties of water together maintain cellular homeostasis, using data…
Read the full lesson →Structure Fits Function: Why No Two Cells Look the Same
Students will construct an evidence-based argument (claim, evidence, reasoning) that relates a specialized cell's organelle profile to the specific job that cell performs, using m…
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