Laboratory experience and skills are not only essential for success in science studies, but are the most exciting and rewarding aspects of science for students. As a result, many biology teachers have become critical of the efficacy of cookbook-type laboratory activities as well as the purposes, practices, and learning outcomes of lab experiments conducted in this regimented way. In our proposed lab approach, instead of asking students to compare and contrast living cells from various kingdoms, we ask that students design and conduct lab experiments to obtain the empirical evidence to disprove both Schleiden’s and Schwann’s generalizations that all living things, including plants and animals, are composed of identical units called “cells.” Students must then write up their findings in a paper intended for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Through this process, students learn the scientific method; concepts such as testability, falsifiability, and repeatability; and the requirements of communicating scientific findings through peer-reviewed publication.

Biological and social evolutionary processes, along with social and cultural developments, have allowed humans to separate procreation from pleasurable/recreational sexual activity. As a class learning project, an alternative, hypothetical reproductive scenario is presented: “What if humans were biologically ready to conceive only during one period each year?” Discussion is followed by small-group or individual research on the possible effects of this scenario on human reproductive response and its further effects on human life, society, and civilization. An important purpose of the activity is to stimulate active learning through small-group interaction, communication, and research.

In this activity, groups of students assume the roles of human body organs. They work together to acquire the knowledge needed to develop a skit to ““act out”” the argument that their selected organ is the most important one in the body. The students learn and reinforce their understanding of the composition and functions of organs and organ systems and how they interrelate to allow for the survival of the body as a whole while maintaining homeostasis throughout life.