For Teachers
Our goal is to best facilitate local teachers in instructing students in biological science and related topics. Any teachers interested in partnering with MCDB for bringing educational demonstrations, inspiring graduate lecturers, or establishing classroom-researcher mentor partnerships should feel free to contact us at the bottom of this page. We believe that building better relationships with Yale and the communities we reside in will not only offer our resources to help inspire a generation of new scientists, but also give our student researchers the opportunity to learn and be inspired themselves in the hope to foster an aptitude for effective communication and community building. Through our teacher-MCDB partnerships, we expect to grow our outreach to better understand and serve our neighbors and future colleagues.
If you are interested in building a classroom partnership with a member of the MCDB community, or have ideas for lesson support topics which would be helpful to your teaching, please reach out to us at mcdb_forteachers@mailman.yale.edu
Biology Resources
For teachers, parents, home-schoolers, and remote learners, these are some of our favorite books and websites about biology and life science to engage students in the elementary to middle school age. We have selected widely-available books about biology, books with biology-related activities, and books about diverse biologists. Within each group they are ordered roughly by grade level. The list is by no means exhaustive, but we hope it will point you to something of interest!
Biology Books for Young Students |
Activity Books |
Books about Biologists |
Online resources
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
The Peabody museum staff in collaboration with local teachers have developed several lesson plans that can be downloaded from their website. Topics include plant science, animal migration, and vector-borne diseases.
MIT K-12 Science videos
In the context of a science & media course, MIT students created a series of videos about scientific concepts and phenomena. The 24 videos introduce various topics in math, physics, chemistry, and biology.
Washington State University: Ask Dr Universe
Dr. Wendy Sue Universe teams up with professors, researchers, and experts in the field, to tackle big questions asked by students at the elementary and middle school level. Short stories and videos are fun and encourage students to keep questioning. You can even submit your own questions!
How stuff works
Popular science articles about various topics. The articles are interesting, but the ads are frankly quite annoying.
Khan Academy
Geared towards middle school and high school students, this non-profit organization has video lectures on a great assortment of biology topics. They also have exercises and articles that together form a quite comprehensive course in biology. Great for independent learners.