Possible Lesson Ideas

During my attachment at Monsanto I received many inspirations from the people cam ein contact with who were more than willing to share their thoughts on developing classroom and student tasks. Some of the ideas mentioned here may have been mentioned before. Here is a collected list. There are there categories - those notated with (Laboratory) means that they can potentially be drawn up as a laboratory class lesson, and those notated with (Classroom) means that it can be used in a classrom while those notated with (Project) indicates that it can be used a complex project task designed for students interested in embarking on research in the Life Sciences Field.

From Tissue Culture Lab

Plant Tissue Culture of Potatoes (Laboratory)
Effect of Auxin/Cytokinin on plant development (Project/Laboratory)
Surveying varieties of miniature roses (orchids) that can be propogated and flowered invitro (Project/Laboratory)
Optimisation of sucrose and surfactant concentrations to determine transformation efficiency (Project)

From Monsanto Biotechnology Packages

DNA dry activities (Classroom)
Transcription and Translation dry activities (Classroom)
Genetic Diseases activity (Classroom)
Bacterial production of Insulin Dramatization (Classroom)

From SIVB Educational Outreach

Characterisation of unknown plasmids (Laboratory)
Use of PCR primers to study conservation of genes across species (Project)

Personal

Learning how to used "Blast" (Classroom/IT)
Bacterial Protein Expression (Laboratory)
Effect of temperature and inducing agent of protein expression level in bacteria (Project)

I am still in the process of writing up these lessons and clearly it is not possible to complete them all in a short time - especially if quality and comprehensiveness is required. The ones that are ready will be made available for your use at your discretion. The material provided has no guarantee attached and you will be fully responsible for whatever outcome the use of these materials in your classroom may bring - including higher success and motivation amongst your students.