In this inquiry-based lab, students are provided with a case study involving a young boy with a head injury exhibiting various symptoms, as well as simulated blood and urine samples to help diagnose the boy's disease. Throughout the course of the lab, students research, design, and conduct a series of tests culminating in a patient prognosis. All of the materials, which simulate the blood, urine, and testing compounds, are readily available at the grocery store or online. This real-world problem engages the students to think about negative feedback systems, patient symptoms, the hormones associated with blood glucose levels and urine production, as well as the detection techniques employed by physicians to diagnose patients. Diagnostic methods, testing procedures, and the disease itself make this lab extraordinarily relevant to the lives of students, as evidenced by our students’ reactions to the lab.

The action of hormones such as insulin in contributing to life-threatening diseases such as diabetes may be difficult for students to understand. To teach students the critical details of the regulation of blood glucose and the different types of diabetes, we created a laboratory exercise using a five-patient hypoglycemic–hyperglycemic coma case.

Students are provided with a mystery concerning dogs that are paralyzed. This motivates a laboratory exercise to measure parameters from the dog’s “blood” to determine whether the paralysis is due to pesticide poisoning or an autoimmune attack on nerve myelin. Most of the materials are available from the grocery store. The real-world nature of the problem, and the mystery, engages the students in thinking about nerve, muscle, and immune system function. Alternative versions require less familiarity with physiology and can be used as engagement activities to encourage learning laboratory skills and experimental design or as motivation for learning nerve and muscle physiology.