JoinAll Case Studies
The cases alone are freely accessible. A subscription is required for access to teaching notes and answer keys.
In keyword search, list the criteria you would like to find cases. Multiple criteria can be listed separated by commas (i.e. directed, high school)
Educational levels are defined as follows: Elementary, Middle, High School, College
Types of cases are defined as follows: Analysis/Issues, Clicker, Debate, Intimate Debate, Demonstration, Dilemma/Decision, Directed, Discussion, Interrupted, Jig-saw, Journal Article, Laboratory, Student Presentations, Mini-case, Problem-Based Learning, Public Hearing, Role-Play, Trial, Flipped, Game
By Erin Barley, Joan Sharp
This "clicker case" teaches students about the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior using the fascinating courtship and mating rituals of the Australian redback spider. The case is presented in class via a PowerPoint presenta...
By Eric Ribbens, Robert H. Grant
This "clicker case" is a redesign of a case, also in our collection, by Robert H. Grant titled "A Strange Fish Indeed: The 'Discovery' of a Living Fossil." The case follows the story of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and her discovery of the coelacanth, ...
By Joan Sharp
This "clicker case" is modified from Martin Kelly's case study "As the Worm Turns: Speciation and the Apple Maggot Fly," also in our collection. Classic cases of incipient speciation such as the apple maggot fly and the hawthorn maggot fly are an exc...
By Erin Barley, Joan Sharp
This “clicker case” explores the questions of when hominins lost their body hair and began wearing clothing by examining the surprising phylogeny of human head, body, and pubic lice. Students are led through the scientific process as they are ask...
By Thomas Horvath
In this “clicker case,” students learn about evolution, speciation, and natural selection as well as interpret phylogenies as they apply to the Canidae family. The case is based on the idea that the domestication of the dog was not likely an inte...
The Case of the Sexually Arrested Orangutans
By Susan B. Chaplin, Laura J. Baumgartner
This case examines the hormonal control of the development and maturation to adulthood and the role of stress hormones in that developmental process. The case was adapted from results summarized in Maggioncalda and Sapolsky’s (2002) article in Scie...
Darwin's Finches and Natural Selection
By Cheryl A. Heinz, Eric Ribbens
In this "clicker case," students learn about natural selection through the research of Peter and Rosemary Grant and colleagues on the finches of the Galapagos Islands. Students are presented with data in the form of graphs and asked to determine what...
By Elizabeth Scharf
In this case study, students learn how archaeology operates as an historical science by collecting and analyzing material evidence to make claims about the past. Assuming the role of zooarchaeologists, they evaluate a hypothetical case in which “Dr...
Exaggerated Traits and Breeding Success in Widowbirds
By J. Phil Gibson
Sexual selection has led to the evolution of interesting traits and behaviors in many animal species. In widowbirds, males undergo a dramatic change in plumage coloration and produce exceptionally long tail feathers during the breeding season. This c...
Chimpanzee Droppings Lead Scientists to Evolutionary Discovery
By Erica F. Kosal
This interrupted case study focuses on the research of Dr. Beatrice Hahn, who investigates DNA sequences in chimpanzee droppings in order to explore the origins of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Students first consider the types of data that...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
Intelligent Design continues to be a hot political and educational topic in some parts of the country. This discussion case study uses the dramatic setting of a public school board as it considers whether district science teachers should be made to r...
Equal Time for Intelligent Design?
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
Whether Intelligent Design should be taught in a science classroom is a serious problem. This case study tackles the issue head-on by using intimate debate, a pedagogical structure in which small student groups are subdivided into opposing student pa...
I'm Looking Over a White-Striped Clover
By Susan Evarts, Alison Krufka, Chester Wilson
This case is an exploration of the process of natural selection using white clover (Trifolium repens) as an example. In general, two forms of white clover can be found around the world in various habitats. One type is able to produce cyanide in its l...
By Katayoun Chamany
In this case study on multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, students consider ways in which to preserve health as a human right without subjecting already marginalized communities susceptible to the disease to further discrimination. Students lear...
The Story of Dinosaur Evolution
By Jeffrey Scott Coker, Jimmie D. Agnew
In this case study, students write their own “evolution stories” based on information taken from a review article by Paul Sereno on the evolution of dinosaurs published in Science magazine. In the process, they learn to distinguish between the th...
By Robin Pals-Rylaarsdam
This PBL case on Intelligent Design was written for freshman biology majors at a Christian liberal arts college. Students read about the claims and actions of proponents of Intelligent Design as they work for its inclusion in the high school science ...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This interrupted case is based on a 2005 article in Nature written by three scientists from the Imperial College London that deals with the issue of sexual vs. asexual reproduction and their relative merits—a question that has bedeviled biologists ...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
The discovery of the platypus had the scientific world in an uproar and kept it tantalized for decades. Here was the strangest animal ever seen. How was one to classify it? It had fur. So, was it a mammal? But then what to make of its duck-like bill?...
By Robert H. Grant
Through a series of fictionalized diary entries, this case recounts the 1939 discovery by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (and identification by J.L.B. Smith) of a living coelacanth, a fish believed to be extinct for over 70 million years. Developed for u...
By Kari E. Benson
In this interrupted case study, students work in teams to interpret behavioral data with respect to evolutionary biology. Specifically, the case examines the behavior of alarm calling in a certain type of squirrel, Belding's ground squirrel, wh...
By Martin Kelly
At what point in evolutionary development does a group of individuals become two distinct species? This case addresses that fundamental question by asking students to decide whether apple maggot flies are distinct as a species from hawthorn maggot fl...
By Patricia Schneider
This case is based on Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby,” a tragic tale of race and gender in antebellum Louisiana first published in 1893. Students read the story and then answer a series of questions about the genetics and evolution...
By Sarah K. Huber, Paula P. Lemons
In this case study, students learn about introduced species and how they pose a threat to biodiversity by analyzing the impact of introduced species on the native bird populations of the Hawaiian Islands. Developed for an introductory biology course,...
By Karin Gastreich
In this case study, students are given the task of developing a recovery plan to protect a recently discovered population of Central American squirrel monkeys on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. In the process they must determine whether the populati...
By Stephanie Vail, Clyde Freeman Herreid
This case presents a fanciful story about the origin of the eukaryotic cell, a major milestone in the evolution of life. The characters of the story are Mito, Chlora, Flag, ER, Nuc, Golgi, Ves, and Ly, all members of an extended cellular family. Writ...
Something’s Fishy in Paxton Lake
By Joan Sharp
In this interrupted case study, students explore the mechanisms of speciation while working in groups to design a series of experiments to determine whether two populations of sticklebacks in Paxton Lake in British Columbia represent separate species...
By Shoshana Tobias, Clyde F. Herreid
This case study combines problem-based learning, role-playing, and science fiction as students research the environmental conditions of the Cambrian period and the types of organisms that developed during that time as they speculate about possible ca...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This interrupted case study is based on a journal article on the parenting behavior of American coots. Working through the case, students develop hypotheses and design experiments to test their hypotheses as they are given pieces of the case in an in...
By James A. Hewlett
In this case study, students apply principles of evolution they have learned in class to create their own story explaining the evolutionary history of a previously unknown species of rodent discovered on an island in the West Indies. The case study i...
By M. Elizabeth Strasser
The setting for this case study is a paleontological dig in East Africa, where “Sam,” an American undergraduate student, has unearthed part of what appears to be an ancestral human skull. Students read the case story and then, in the lab, they ex...
By Nancy A. Schiller, Clyde Freeman Herreid
The discovery of a mammoth frozen in the Siberian tundra is the backdrop for this case study, which explores theories for the extinction of the great Ice Age mammals and Homo neanderthalensis....
Should Dinosaurs Be Cloned from Ancient DNA?
By Constance M. Soja, Deborah Huerta
Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, as a novel and then a blockbuster movie, reawakened the public's fascination with dinosaurs. Although dinosaurs have always been popular, Spielberg's sophisticated cinema computer graphics thrilled human imagination ...
By Nancy A. Schiller, Clyde Freeman Herreid
Using problem-based learning and role-playing, students analyze the geological origins of the Galapagos Islands, their colonization, species formation, and threats to their biodiversity in this story of a graduate student caught between local fisherm...
By Shoshana Tobias, Clyde Freeman Herreid
In this role-playing case study, students attempt to determine the identity of a variety of human fossils based on characteristics described during a “quiz show.” The case was designed to be used in a general biology class for freshman stud...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This problem-based learning case uses Archaeopteryx, the most famous fossil in the world, to show the vital role that fossils play in understanding evolutionary history and to explore the different theories for the origin of flight and the debate ove...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This directed case study on a genetic disorder was developed for an exam on genetics for a general biology course. The case is based on an article by scientist and author Jared Diamond titled “Founding Fathers and Mothers” that appeared in ...