JoinAll Case Studies
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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 Bwalya Lungu
This directed case study is based on an actual multi-state foodborne illness outbreak that occurred in the United States from October 2015 through January 2016. The outbreak involved consumption of food contaminated by E.coli STEC O26 and was traced ...
Deep in the Weeds of Organic Farming
By Matthew S. Taylor, Mariëlle H. Hoefnagels, Mark E. Walvoord
Deciding between organic or conventional produce is one of the many choices that consumers make when buying food. Is organic produce worth the extra cost? Is it healthy and good for the environment? This case study challenges students to gather evide...
By Adela M. Acosta
In this case study, “Tatiana,” a college student, introduces psychrometry to her younger brother as she explains the physical phenomenon of dew. This everyday scenario is used to demonstrate the relationship between moisture content in the air an...
By Helen S. Joyner, Clinton Stevenson
In this interrupted case study, students assume the role of a quality assurance intern at a plant that manufactures shredded cheese. As there is no formal sampling plan in place to ensure product quality, students are tasked with developing a fe...
By Brian K. Sato, Eduardo Cruz-Hinojoza, Duyen Dinh-Dang
This "clicker case" focuses on the use of molecular biology concepts and techniques to protect the property of a fictional bread company. Students will address questions as to how one can "mark" a yeast strain by embedding a particular DNA sequence i...
By Justin A. Pruneski, Enya J. Granados, Kaylee M. Wilburn
In addition to traditional nutrition facts and ingredients, current food packaging frequently includes a wide variety of additional labels including: organic, antibiotic free, cage free/free range, gluten free, no added hormones, no MSG, non-GMO, and...
By Ann T.S. Taylor
The protagonist of this two-day flipped case study, “Maria,” has two problems. She doesn’t like it when the apple slices in her lunch turn brown, and she needs to find a project for her biology class that includes molecular biology, preferably ...
By Suzanne R. Carpenter, Richard H. Wallace
Currently there is considerable confusion surrounding the use of the term "organic" as applied to food and other consumer products, but within the agriculture industry the term has a well-defined meaning related to the practices that are allowed in t...
Gastronomic Gastroenteritis at The Fat Duck
By Nienke E. van Houten
This interrupted case study was inspired by and uses data from one of the largest commercial restaurant associated outbreaks of norovirus reported in the literature. It applies basic principles of epidemiology and outbreak investigation to a shellfis...
By Helen S. Joyner, Brennan Smith
In this case study, students assume the role of a quality assurance team that is in charge of determining potential causes and solutions for potato chip bags that open during the shipping process. Students will use basic quality control tools to eval...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students are asked to design a new refrigeration system for a company that stores produce. Students will need to consider various aspects of refrigeration system design, such as single- versus multi-stage, size, operating temperat...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students assume the role of a quality assurance (QA) technician who is working on finding the root cause of customer complaints for apple cider. Students will critically examine the sampling practices for the apples used for...
By Lalitha S. Jayant, Christine Priano, Sarah N. Salm, Lauren N. Goodwyn
When covering the process of cellular respiration, advanced high school and undergraduate biology classes present fermentation as a means of anaerobic energy production in certain organisms and in muscle metabolism. Although most biology textbooks co...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study students assume the role of quality assurance personnel at a small artisan cheese company. They are given a flowchart of the cheesemaking process and a set of process data. They must develop control charts to monitor process qualit...
Flowing Fine: Moving Fluids on an Industrial Scale
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students assume the role of a process engineer for a pilot plant. Students are tasked with selecting a piping arrangement from a list of available options, creating a diagram of the flow system, determining the terms needed in the...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students assume the role of process engineers in an orange juice production facility. They determine modes of heat transfer to and from the orange juice, develop equations for the heat transfer scenario they have identified, and d...
By Helen S. Joyner, Michael L. Allen
If you were limited to choosing only three crops to sustainably farm in an arid, inhospitable environment, what would they be and how would you decide? This interrupted case study places students in the role of a proposed self-sufficient Martian colo...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students assume the role of a process engineer on a whey refinement process. As the process engineer for the line, students must develop a block diagram of the process, perform a mass balance on each step of the process, and...
By Christopher J. Cheng, Clinton Stevenson
Based on a true story, this case study was created to teach students how to perform statistical tests and determine whether a significant difference exists between two sets of data. Students are faced with the task of assisting Jeff, the manager of a...
By Helen S. Joyner
This interrupted case study follows the progress of Kenny, the head operator for a whey protein processing system, as he works with Cheryl, a quality management specialist, to implement control charts to monitor process variables. Students assume the...
By Heather K.L. Harden, Michael L. Foley, Rachel A. Poon, Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
During the Paleolithic era, human life expectancy was only 33 years—roughly half of what it is today. We owe our more extended lives in part to better hygiene, medicines, and more plentiful foods. Yet some people aspire to return to that earlier er...
By Helen S. Joyner
In this case study, students assume the roles of research and development personnel in a dairy company that is developing a low-fat yogurt. Guided by research provided by the company's marketing department, students must select attributes of the yogu...
By Helen S. Joyner
"Gerri" is the owner of a local bakery that specializes in cupcakes. Her assistant, "Kelsey," is preparing an order for a wedding when she discovers that she has lost her ring and can't find it anywhere in the kitchen. Since the ring had been loose o...
By Stephanie L. Luster-Teasley, Rebecca L. Ives
Life has changed for the rural residents of Farmville County since the arrival of four concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); the air has an odor, wildlife has decreased, and illnesses are on the rise. One of the town's residents has become ...
Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Bad for the Apple Industry?
By Jeffri C. Bohlscheid
In this interrupted case, students analyze a peer-reviewed article and apply the scientific method to solve an agricultural mystery. A fictional apple farmer and his son are trying to determine if high fructose corn syrup has led to the loss of the b...
By Nancy A. Rice
This clicker case introduces students to the biochemistry of lipids through the story of Pete, a college student who begins to consider his nutritional fat intake after watching a commercial for the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin. In this case, st...
By Ling Chen, Lalitha S. Jayant
It's Mother's Day and Dolly, a high school senior, is making a Mediterranean salad for her mom, who is a college chemistry major and who likes to take every opportunity to teach Dolly what she has learned in school. Today is no exception, as she guid...
By Ling Chen, Diane R. Wang, Jennifer Y. Anderson
This case reviews concepts of monosaccharide, disaccharide, and polysaccharide and contrasts the structures of different pairs of carbohydrates as well as the structure of sorbitol, a sugar substitute. It also depicts stereo chemistry concepts such a...
By Jeffri C. Bohlscheid, Frank J. Dinan
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has claimed approximately one-third of the commercial honeybee population in recent years. A number of causes have been suggested for this phenomenon, including the consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by the ...
Banana Split: To Eat or Not to Eat
By Lori M. Carris, Nancy L. Jacobson
This case focuses on the banana, the most popular fruit in the world. In the first part of the case, students are introduced to the history of "Banana Republics" and the biological constraints to banana production, including the devastating fun...
By Ling Chen, Jennifer Y. Anderson, Diane R. Wang
The Clarksons are making dinner for friends and decide to try out their new pressure cooker. As students read the dialogue that ensues, they learn about how the boiling point of water is directly related to external pressure, apply the ideal gas law,...
By Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
In this intimate debate case, students consider whether to support the development and use of Golden Rice as a means to alleviate vitamin A deficiency in the developing world. Since many of the arguments typically raised against genetically modified ...
By Brahmadeo Dewprashad
This case study was developed to engage students by making connections between core concepts in organic chemistry and the health-promoting chemical, curcumin, found in turmeric. The case is in the form of a dialogue between a couple about the surpris...
Would You Supersize My Cancer, Please?
By Ashley Coffelt , Mark M. Richter
The recent discovery of acrylamide in both fried and baked foods like French fries and potato chips has caused alarm. Acrylamide is both a known carcinogen in animals when administered in high doses and a neurotoxin when humans are exposed to large a...
Do You Really Know What You're Eating?
By Wayne Shew (rr), Mary Celeste Reese
Starting from a fictional “news” report about an apparent allergic reaction to a taco tainted by genetically modified corn, students consider some of the techniques and procedures used in modern molecular genetics and microbiology as well as some...
By Bryan Hains, Dawn Hains, Mark Balschweid
In this case study, students are introduced to concepts and techniques in modern biotechnology, as well as the possible implications of this emerging science, by considering the possibility of in vitro cultured meat. Intended for use in a college-lev...
Which Little Piggy Went to Market?
By Debra A. Meuler
In this case study, a scientist is contacted by a friend from a meat processing plant who is looking for a test to determine the sex of the animals that contributed to a particular batch of meat. He needs to know because meat from uncastrated males (...
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Grease Fire
By Ingolf Gruen
Late on a Saturday night, a fire in the kitchen of a popular restaurant results in almost a million dollars in damages. Fortunately, there is no loss of life or serious injury. Fire department officials think that a grease fire was most likely the ca...
By Elaine M. Schamber, Paul A. Hammond
A possible act of industrial espionage is the backdrop for this case study, which introduces students to analytical techniques routinely used in most areas of biotechnology, including forensic science and patent lawsuits. In this fictional case, "Rog...
All That Glitters May Not Be Gold
By Gerald F. Combs, Jr
In this decision case, a congressional staffer must weigh a number of competing concerns and issues, including popular reactions to genetically modified organisms, in deciding how to present information to her boss, an influential congressman draftin...