Problem-based learning via virtual exchange affords opportunities for students to learn biology while developing abilities to learn about and work with diverse others. We describe an activity using these methods, with goals for students to develop useful cell structure analogies, analyze how analogies are not perfect representations of target concepts, practice working with diverse others, deepen cell structure knowledge, and learn about people from another culture. We explain the framework for the activity and share student evaluation data. The activity had U.S. and Egyptian high school girls compare their Phoenix and Cairo homes, create an imagined combined home, construct an analogy for how cell structures and organelles are like parts of this home, and then analyze their analogy to see where it breaks down. The activity does not require special materials, only internet access through a computer or mobile phone and access to Google Docs. Students used critical and creative thinking, first to construct their analogies and then to analyze those analogies. Evaluation data suggest that students learned from the activity, enjoyed it, and appreciated the opportunity to work with someone from a different culture.

Like a fissionable isotope, knowledge has a half-life. Fortunately, teachers can craft information in ways that can change the nuclear heart of subject matter to ensure interest, linkage, and retention, all through the telling of a good story. Taking students' existing knowledge and background into account to carefully craft appropriate analogy-integrated stories, key concepts and information can be rendered familiar, accessible, engaging, and enjoyable. “The Marvels of the (Squabbling) Cell” is an example story that employs anthropomorphosis to convey general cell biology in a lighthearted manner in which personal experience and social rules enable a deeper understanding of complex biological subject matter. Equally important, the story lives in students as a conceptual landmark that remains in view during instruction.

All teachers hope that students learn to apply and analyze, rather than simply memorize or parrot back, the teacher's words. One method of encouraging the development of students’ higher-level thinking skills is to give learners practice in identifying appropriate analogies for biological concepts, and in forming their own. Analogies focus on the larger concepts we are trying to teach, rather than specific biological details or actual biological examples. They are fun to practice in class, and this practice prepares students for similar test questions.

We present a collection of analogies that are intended to help students better understand the foreign and often nuanced vocabulary of the genetics curriculum. Why is it called the “wild type”? What is the difference between a locus, a gene, and an allele? What is the functional (versus a rule-based) distinction between dominant and recessive alleles? It is our hope that by using these analogies, teachers at all levels of the K–16 curriculum can appeal to the common experience and common sense of their students, to lay a solid foundation for mastery of genetics and, thereby, to enhance understanding of evolutionary principles.