Catalyst Magazine Live Teaching Resources - Biomedical Science in Action!

This resource collection complements the Catalyst Live! webinar held on 16th March 2022. Topics covered in the webinar included stem-cells, developmental biology, genetic diseases and cancer treatments; the resources below have been hand-picked to complement these areas and provide inspirational teaching activities that link these topics to the curriculum.

From the University of Utah, this interactive animation allows students to gain an appreciation of scale as they zoom in from metres to picometres. Various items appear in the animation as the magnification is increased, journeying through cellular and sub-cellular structures through to atoms.

A virtual SEM that allows students to practice observing various objects at different magnifications. This interactive animation allows varous settings and parameters of the SEM to be manipulated by students, allowing them to explore structural features of a range of biological material

Virtual Cell provides a series of clear animations that can be shown in lessons to provide detail on subcellular structures and processes. These include:

Through the virtual cell - a tour of cellular organelles from first person perspective

Mitosis

Meiosis

The animations can be used by a teacher as part of a lesson or by students to recap on their learning.

A guide to making a model cell using polythene bags, wallpaper paste and various other common household objects to model a bacterial cell. This would be a good enrichment activity for students - although this particular resource is aimed at KS3 students, it could easily be extended to KS4 or KS5

A great activity for modelling the behaviour of chromosomes during meiosis - using socks! This resource provides comprehensive guidance on how to use pairs of socks to represent homologous chromosomes and model the formation of gametes.

A more common modelling task for this topic involves the use of pipecleaners - of which another guidance document can be found HERE

In this practical activity, students will prepare and observe dividing cells from the meristems of actively growing garlic root tips.

This is an improved and simplified protocol from the well-known version using acetic orcein. Toluidine blue is used to stain the DNA in the meristem cells, giving a simpler and less hazardous process for the students, and producing an excellent level of contrast within the cells (see image above)

HHMI Biointeractive provides various animations on many biological processes, including that of embryonic development shown in this resource. The animation provides excellent detail on how a zygote undergoes cell division and differentiation to produce the various tissues of a developing embryo.

Practical activities involving stem cells are few and far between in KS4 or KS5 science, but this protocol provides a fascinating method of observing stem cells in action. This activity allows students to observe their own planarian (flatworm) and then design an experiment to observe how they regenerate. .

This video introduces a reliable technique to demonstrate tissue culture and totipotency, and shows how best to use this protocol with your students. The technique is based on a protocol developed by plant scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and is used in their conservation programmes, allowing critically endangered plant material to be cloned in the field, rather than waiting until a 'clean lab' can be found to rescue plant material.

From Wellcome, this resource uses real genomic data to find mutations in a gene associated with pancreatic, lung and colorectal cancers. The activity allows students to take a closer look at the changes that occur in the sequence of DNA during cancer. They will search within the KRAS gene and find out how these mutations alter the resulting protein produced. By modelling the protein in a 3D program they will then see how the protein is affected and why it leads to tumours developing.

Decoding Cancer is a website that features many educational resources that can be used to teach students about cancer. Lesson materials are provided, along with virtual labs/interactive case studies, student handbooks and educator guides