Every BiteScis lesson has two components: A “Bite” and an activity. The Bite is a brief (1–3 page) write-up that makes areas of active science research accessible to a student audience. Bites are available separated from a lesson plan so they can be used in a variety of ways (science and technical texts, anyone?). As parts of our lesson plans, the Bites may be integrated into an activity or serve as a launching pad. The activities themselves vary from a traditional “wet lab” to an old-fashioned minds-on Q&A with everything in between. Some activities require computers or specialized equipment, but many don’t, and those that do often come with modification suggestions to make them workable in any setting. Oh! And one last thing–all BiteScis lessons come with extensive educator documents with background, standards alignments, learning objectives, teaching tips, and of course, the answers.
More Lesson Plans Coming Soon!
We are currently developing lesson plans for several high school topics across biology, physics, and chemistry. Take a look at our current library of lessons to get a feel for what BiteScis is all about, and if you like what you see, join us! We need educators to try out our existing and in-progress lessons and we need educators and researchers to work on new ones! We hope to expand quickly, first to all major topics in high school biology, chemistry, and physics, and then to middle and elementary science.
Using BiteScis in the Classroom
Our goal is for BiteScis lessons to be as easy as possible to implement in the classroom. If you’re looking for labs that take weeks, lessons that aren’t tied to a required topic, or activities that require a long list of specialized materials, we aren’t for you. But if you want high-quality, standards-aligned lessons that engage students and tie to current research all in 1–2 class periods, you have come to the right place.
Knowing, too, that every classroom is unique, we have designed our already flexible lessons to be personalized and modified by making them completely free and fully editable in Google docs. We encourage you to make our lesson plans your own and contact us if you found something worked really well or you have a suggestion for improvement.
BiteScis has opted not to require a log in to make your lives simpler. As such, resourceful students will be able to find our answer keys. To maintain the authenticity of the lesson, we suggest limiting for-a-grade homework. If you need out of class time to complete the lesson, reading the Bite and taking notes is a good option. If you are assigning questions for a graded score, consider making changes to the student documents such as removing the BiteScis logo and/or changing the names of the documents.