Continuing with the theme... In my last post I showed a blood model that I use to help my students understand that oxygenated blood tends to be a red color and deoxygenated blood tends to have a deep red color with the blood model. blood models Here is another way I use simple materials to demonstrate a concept to my students. I use baby pop-it beads to show the relationship between amino acids and proteins.     Each bead represents an amino acid (I wrote the names of different amino acids on each in permanent marker) and a long chain of them represents a protein.     I keep my eyes pealed for these babies at garage sales because eventually someday I would like to have so many "amino acids" that I can make a protein chain that is long enough to twist and make a shape that would be a better representative of a protein's tertiary structure. What do you use as models in your class? originally posted on ballinwithballing.blogsp...

     Some of my students have a tough time understanding concepts if it isn't right in front of them. So to make the concept of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood clearer to them, I had them help me make 2 models for our classroom. These models lasted over a week before getting gross (then I flushed them) and saved the mason jars for next school year. The canning jars were filled with water (to represent the plasma), cheerios (to represent the red blood cells because rbc's don't have a nucleus which made the cheerios a good shape), food coloring (red and blue), and marshmallows. The idea came from Pinterest.com Some of you have requested that I put links on my blog where you can buy the items I use so I am going to try to do that for you. Especially those of you who live in a different country than I do...this will help you!  You can buy canning jars here: You only need a small amount of cheerios...I purchased a couple of these Cheerios in a cu...

     Often teachers find everyday materials and find a new way to use them in the classroom. It's a part of the job that sticks with you and even in the summer I see items in a new way and try to find new ways to help my students learn difficult concepts.  I have noticed that even retired teachers can't turn their brains off and even though they may not have a class anymore they still continue to look for new materials for the classroom. Here is one of my examples from my classroom: skein of yarn (AKA: Chromosome) it might look like a skein of yarn to you...but to a biology teacher (like myself) and to my students it represents a chromosome. Because it is just like DNA that has been all coiled up and packaged so that it is easy to move in the cell.      Could you imagine if they sold yarn uncoiled in the store like this? Uncoiled yarn (AKA: DNA in the cell in Interphase) Yarn uncolied a...