Interactive Notebooks Make Teaching Viruses and Bacteria a Snap

Do you need a new/better routine for your classroom?

Are you looking for a way to review and reinforce the volume of biology information you must cover?

Looking for quality warm up activities or homework assignments?

I use warm ups or bell ringers every single day as a method of getting my students settled, on task, and ready to learn.  These activities are short, and take only a few minutes to complete.  Once students are used to the routine, they will enter the classroom and get right to work.  I like that the first few minutes of class are spent "getting down to business."

There is such great versatility in how you can use these interactive notebook pages.  As already stated, they are perfect for turning the first chaotic minutes of class into a time of meaningful learning and reinforcement.  I also use them for homework assignments, and they are perfect to leave in my sub folder in case I am absent.

If students are required to keep them in a notebook, they have a perfect study guide for the unit test and semester exams.

This is the 7th set of warm up activities posted to my TpT store.  (Check out the blog archive in the right side bar to see previous articles.)  This set covers "Viruses and Bacteria."  The set of 23 student pages covers all the topics found in a typical first year biology textbook.

The student pages are printed landscape style.  The pages look best if printed in color, but also look great if printed in black/white.  Each activity is one-half page in size.  Two identical warm-ups are printed per page in order to conserve paper.  Simply print the pages and cut them in half.

All teacher pages are set up in this style.  The student activity is on the left, and the answers are on the right side of the page.  Print these pages for your teacher notebook.

Click here to view in my TpT store.

You can download a FREE sampler pack from my store.  The pack includes 1-2 warm ups from each of my warm up sets..

Previous sets include:

Introduction to Science

Cell Structure and Function

Ecology

Genetics

DNA, RNA and Protein Synthesis

Evolution and Classification

Lab: Microorganisms in the School Environment

How clean is your school??

We have just completed some bacteria labs in our Biology 1 classes.  The first lab we did is called "Microorganisms in the School Environment".  The students really like this one.  Each student is given a sterile Petri dish of nutrient agar and allowed to choose a location in the school.  The purpose of the activity is to determine where in the school the most bacteria are found.  Students take a sterile swab and rub along surfaces in their location, then streak their swab across the surface of their agar.  Dishes are incubated for 48 hours, and the total number of colonies are counted.  


Students are often amazed at the results.  The students are always convinced that the cafeteria and the bathrooms will be overrun with bacteria, but the results usually show that these locations have the fewest bacteria.  Almost always, we find that a locker has the highest number of bacteria!

I don't place a lot of validity on the test results, but it is a fun activity to do when teaching a unit on microorganisms.   Just remember to have the students seal their dishes with tape, and do not allow the dishes to be opened after the bacterial colonies have grown.


Here is the link to my lab on TeachersPayTeachers.com as well as links to some related products.


Lab:  Microorganisms in the School 
Environment

Viruses and Bacteria Complete Unit Plan

Bacteria Homework / Study Guide

Happy Teaching!!