The course Bio-Inspired Design gives an overview of non-conventional mechanical approaches in nature and shows how this knowledge can lead to more creativity in mechanical design and to better (simpler, smaller, more robust) solutions than with conventional technology. The course discusses a large number of biological organisms with smart constructions, unusual mechanisms or clever sensing and processing methods and presents a number of technical examples and designs of bio-inspired instruments and machines.

Using natural sensory system concepts to develop and improve sensory systems will continue to thrive for many years to come. Technology advances rapidly (Moore’s Law) as does our understanding of biological principles and designs. These trends fuel the fertile grounds of bio-inspired sensory systems, a topic that is inherently multidisciplinary. This book will serve well as either an academic text on the subject or an introduction to the variety of proven bio-inspired designs. The focus is on sensory systems that interpret environmental stimuli. It introduces natural photo-, mechano-, and chemo-sensory systems across the animal kingdom and also summarizes various novel engineering ideas that glean ideas from these natural sensory systems.

BioNook is Whitehead Institute’s online biology resource, offering exciting learning enrichment for students, parents and teachers. Find videos, podcasts and stories on Whitehead Institute Science, as well as virtual workshop opportunities through BioNook’s After School Science Club, and ideas for nature-based activities.
Explore free materials on biology and research—from deep explorations of how science is done, to stories following the lives of scientists, to suggestions for fun outside activities and hands-on citizen science projects.

Patterns of diversity, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Emphasis is on the Tree of Life and how its members are distributed and interact. Partial Course.

Satellite observations that detect and map fires provide important insight into the widespread nature of fire activity around the world. This visualization, which shows global satellite observations of fires in 2002 and 2003, goes on to focus on a region where fire plays a dominant role in the landscape: Southern California. The wildfires that roared through Southern California in the autumns of 2003 and 2007 were particularly fast-burning and destructive because people have actively suppressed fires in the region where residential development is expanding further and further into wild land areas.

Love is deeply biological. It pervades every aspect of our lives and has inspired countless works of art. Love also has a profound effect on our mental and physical state. A “broken heart” or a failed relationship can have disastrous effects; bereavement disrupts human physiology and may even precipitate death. Without loving relationships, humans fail to flourish, even if all of their other basic needs are met. As such, love is clearly not “just” an emotion; it is a biological process that is both dynamic and bidirectional in several dimensions. Social interactions between individuals, for example, trigger cognitive and physiological processes that influence emotional and mental states. In turn, these changes influence future social interactions. Similarly, the maintenance of loving relationships requires constant feedback through sensory and cognitive systems; the body seeks love and responds constantly to interactions with loved ones or to the absence of such interactions. The evolutionary principles and ancient hormonal and neural systems that support the beneficial and healing effects of loving relationships are described here.

This Ology game site contains rules and a board for a board game dealing with extinction, particularly the modern biodiversity crisis. The players need to read endangered species facts from the board to answer questions on the spaces that they land in so that they can progress. Users can follow links to what to do and materials needed for the game.

Developed for the second grade. A biodome is a self-sustaining habitat for plants. Students will make a biodome in a recycled soda bottle and watch as their seeds grow. Students will observe and understand how the water in the biodome continues to recycle itself through condensation and evaporation.Biology In Elementary Schools is a Saint Michael's College student project. The teaching ideas on this page have been found, refined, and developed by students in a college-level course on the teaching of biology at the elementary level. Unless otherwise noted, the lesson plans have been tried at least once by students from our partner schools. This wiki has been established to share ideas about teaching biology in elementary schools. The motivation behind the creation of this page is twofold: 1. to provide an outlet for the teaching ideas of a group of college educators participating in a workshop-style course; 2. to provide a space where anyone else interested in this topic can place their ideas.

This course is a continuation of Bioinformatics I. Topics include gene expression, microarrays, next- generation sequencing methods, RNA-seq, large genomic projects, protein structure and stability, protein folding, and computational structure prediction of proteins; proteomics; and protein-nucleic acid interactions. The lab component includes R-based statistical data analysis on large datasets, introduction to big data analysis tools, protein visualization software, internet-based tools and high-level programming languages.

This template is meant to be a guide for Nebraska Teachers when creating Units of Instruction for the BlendEd Best Practices Project. Headings and/or topics not included in the lesson plan should be marked N/A.

This is a syllabus for a first-semester introductory biology class, including reading links for current news articles related to the course topics as well as an OpenStax textbook.

This video segment from Evolution: "Extinction!" shows the impact of invasive species on native ecosystems.

This graduate course will introduce students to the processes controlling phytoplankton, zooplankton, heterotrophic bacterial and benthic infaunal growth and abundance. We'll do a broad-scale survey of patterns of productivity and abundance in the coastal zones, upwelling centers, gyres, and the deep sea. We'll briefly survey ecosystem simulation models, especially those applicable to the Gulf of Maine. Readings will be from the primary literature and a few book chapters. The effects of anthropogenic effects on marine communities will be stressed throughout. Calculus will be used throughout the course, but there is no formal calculus requirement.

It has always seemed to me that the many parts that make up the subject of biology are related to each other more like the nodes of a web than as a linear collection of independent topics. So I believe that the power of hypertext will be better suited to learning about biology than is the linear structure of a printed textbook. Another disadvantage of printed textbooks is the inevitable delay between the time that new advances in biology are reported and the time that they can become incorporated in a printed book (often several years). Material here can be updated promptly. So although some of this information has been drawn from the sixth edition of the author's text Biology published in 1994 by Wm. C. Brown, every effort has been made to adapt the material to the opportunities provided by an online text.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

This course will introduce biology to non-science majors, which provides an introduction to biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, evolution, biodiversity, physiology, ecology, and environmental biology.In this course we will actually be doing biological research.  We will be working on researching real-life problems and the ways they may be solved.  You will be working online with teammates to complete background research and solve problems. 

This lab manual is designed to support classrooms without specialized lab equipment. Recommended as a supplement to the Blue Mountain Community College adaptation of OpenStax Concepts of Biology: Concepts of Biology, available at https://www.oercommons.org/courses/concepts-of-biology-2

Lab Manual for BIO101 at Mt Hood Community College. The associated textbook is available at https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/mhccbiology101/