Teaching ideas with a summer flavour

With the warmer weather fast approaching, why not introduce a summer flavour to your teaching this term?

Students from years 7–10 might enjoy the activities below, which all relate to summer food and outdoor eating and offer opportunities for either a science or technology focus.

• 
  A comparison of home-made marinades - measure and compare the protein-digesting activity of fruits or vegetables commonly used in marinades.
• Making fermented drinks – experiment with yeast to understand fermentation and develop a new summer drink.
• Identifying cheese characteristics – taste some different types of cheese, explore the science of cheese and learn how different cheeses are created.
• 
  Investigating how pea crabs affect supermarket mussels – generate real data and learn about biocontrol.
• Testing the degradability of potato plates – measure and compare the degradability of potato plates with other disposable plates.

• Investigating apple attributes – measure apple attributes such as crispness, firmness and juiciness and compare different apple varieties.
• Testing fish oil in ice cream – learn about sensory testing and functional foods or explore the ethics of adding fish oil or other compounds to food.

Find resources easily with our Advanced Search

Whether you’re using an inquiry approach or just looking for a specific topic or concept, our Advanced Search is the ideal tool to help you quickly find what you’re looking for on the Hub. You can tailor your search to meet your needs. For example, you can search within curriculum strands or levels, and you can narrow your search to information sheets, unit plans, worksheets or multimedia, as well as other options.

If you need to extend your search further, you can use the direct link to our sister site, the Science Learning Hub, at the right of the screen and try the Advanced Search there.

Hub collections on Pinterest

We continue to add to our boards on Pinterest to make it easier for you to find resources from across the site that link together. Our boards collect together Hub resources around different topics or themes.

Examples include Start a discussion, which combines a range of articles that provide scope for stimulating discussion and exploring a range of views, and Interactives and animations, which allows you to easily scroll through to find your favourite, or if you’re planning for next year, we have several boards that collect together Hub resources that support NCEA standards, such as Level 3 Bio AS91602 and Level 3 Bio AS91607.

If you’re teaching technology, our Technological modelling board has a range of current examples of modelling used in product development.

Remember, you don’t have to register to use Pinterest – simply follow the link on our home page.

News and events  

Keep up to date with the latest biotechnology news, events and radio broadcasts. The articles below are highlights from our weekly news feature.

Fighting fat – News item
Scientists may have a new weapon in the fat fight after developing a compound that prevents rats on a high-fat, high-sugar diet from becoming obese. It reduced body weight in obese rats by approximately 10%.

Stump to pump research programme – News item
A research programme to study the feasibility, including the cost-effectiveness, of converting forestry waste to liquid biofuels is to receive a $6.75 million boost from the New Zealand government.

National New Zealand Flax Collection – RNZ audio
Alison Ballance visits the National New Zealand Flax Collection at Lincoln where she meets ethno-botanist Sue Scheele and curator Katarina Tawiri to find out more about the harakeke collection.

Wool in wound dressings – RNZ audio
AgResearch scientists explain how wool products are traced and how wool proteins are using in wound dressings.

More news and events

Contact us

We’d like to hear from you if you’re using Hub resources in the classroom or if you’re interested in helping us develop new resources. Please email enquiries@biotechlearn.org.nz, and we’ll be in touch.

Wishing you all a very safe and enjoyable summer holiday and a Merry Christmas.

Best wishes
The Biotechnology Learning Hub team
www.biotechlearn.org.nz