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 Susan Bandoni Muench
In this interrupted case study, students examine the cooperative courtship behavior of long-tailed manakins. Males of the long-tailed form leks, areas in which males display for females in groups. Leks in this species consist of two to 11 males, with...
By Karin Grimnes (rr)
This interrupted case study is a story about Carrie and her infant daughter Hayden who share similar symptoms: weight loss, metabolic abnormalities, and endocrine glands that just won't quit - as well as autoimmune complications. Students will eventu...
By William D. Rogers
This clicker case is based upon the case "Stem Cells: Promises to Keep" written by Lauren E. Yaich and published by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. The case is formatted as a PowerPoint presentation (1.5 MB) punctuated by ques...
Mini Cases in Psychoactive Drugs and Their Effects on the Brain
By Darlene A. Mitrano
Designed for an upper-level psychology class titled Brain & Behavior, this series of mini-cases can be used in any undergraduate course that covers the major classes of commonly abused legal and illicit psychoactive drugs from a biological standp...
By Jeffrey A. Steinmetz, Reed M. Perkins
This case study focuses on the growing issue of water use rights in the southeastern United States. Approximately 1.3 million people in North and South Carolina depend on the Catawba-Wateree River for water and electricity. The river is also importan...
By Tamar L. Goulet
This clicker case introduces the human menstrual cycle and its associated misconceptions by following the story of Ann, a newlywed college student. Ann worries that she is pregnant and confides in her friend, Karen, a biology major. By following thei...
Resistance Is Futile, Or is It? The Clicker Version
By Steven L. Telleen
This clicker case is an adaptation of a case by Annie Prud'homme-Généreux that was originally published by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science titled "Resistance Is Futile ... or Is It? The Immunity System and HIV Infection." It ...
By Deborah Engelen-Eigles
This four-part problem-based learning case examines cultural conflicts between Western medicine and non-Western traditional healing practices. Students consider notions of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism through the lens of social institutions,...
By Eric Ribbens
This case explores two-species interactions, especially mutualism, and presents students with a problem, namely, the inconsistent treatment of the concept of mutualism and symbiosis in many textbooks. It begins with a question that students will prob...
By Jianli Zhou, Peggy Brickman
FOXP2 was first identified as a human language gene when a mutated version of the gene was found to cause speech problems in the KE family in London. In 2009, a research team transferred the cloned FOXP2 gene into mice and demonstrated that the FOXP2...
By Norris Armstrong
This "clicker case" was designed to develop students' ability to read and interpret information stored in DNA. Making use of personal response systems ("clickers") along with a PowerPoint presentation, students follow the story of "Jason," a student ...
By Hannah L. Rusch, Jim A. Perry
This interrupted case engages students in issues contributing to the increase of dengue fever in Jamaica. The overall goal of the case is to make clear the connections between land use management and public health, specifically dengue fever. Students...
By R. Deborah Overath
This interrupted case dramatizes the discovery of a Mendelian trait in humans, namely the variation in the ability to taste the chemical phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). By examining data and questions related to this trait, students will draw connections ...
By Kristy J. Wilson
Sam, a pre-med college student, routinely gets dialysis and develops a urinary tract infection. The infection is from a bacterium that the news media is calling a "superbug" from India. Sam does some internet searches to find out more information abo...
By Joan-Beth Gow, Susan Nava-Whitehead, Kerri W. Augusto
In this interdisciplinary case, students meet Josie, the main character, who suffers from a variety of symptoms. Students must grapple with the conflicting data presented, which ultimately leads them to a diagnosis of either porphyria or schizophreni...
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...
Osmosis is Serious Business! Hebrew Translation
By Troy R. Nash
This directed case study, translated from the original English into Hebrew, involves two “stories,” each concerned with some aspect of osmosis in living cells. Part I is centered around the effects of a hypertonic environment on plant cells, whil...
By Debby Walser-Kuntz
Taylor's doctor notices she has swollen lymph nodes and an elevated white blood cell count on her routine annual exam and asks her to return for a follow-up flow cytometry test to rule out chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Students follow along as ...
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 Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
Cancer is usually thought to be a disease that affects individuals. But could cancer evolve to become infectious? This case follows the research on a form of transmissible cancer that is decimating the Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest carnivoro...
By Kristen N. Hausmann, Karen M. Aguirre
This interdisciplinary case study introduces us to the Greens, a family with a recently diagnosed autistic child. Autism is one of several disorders grouped within the acronym ASD, or autism spectrum disorders. Autistic children have problems with co...
Do Corridors Have Value in Conservation?
By Andrea Bixler
This case study discusses conservation corridors as a means to reduce the problems of population size and isolation in a fragmented habitat. In an interrupted format, students learn what a corridor is, consider how nature preserves and corridors func...
By Kathleen G. Brown, Sharon S. Ellerton
This case study is designed to integrate important aspects of the nervous and muscular system portions of an anatomy and physiology course. Students follow the story of “Kathy,” whose symptoms involve both sensory and motor components of the nerv...
The Evolution of Human Skin Color
By Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
While the concept of evolution by natural selection is very simple, it is often misunderstood by students. This is partly due to preconceptions they have as well as a lack of understanding or emphasis on the idea that reproductive success (and not su...
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 Md Rumi Shammin, John Petersen, Jordan F. Suter
This role-playing case on climate change policy is designed to engage student groups in parallel discussions on policy instruments and packages for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, student groups discuss cap-and-trade and carbon ta...
By Sheri L. Boyce
In this case, students assume the role of a fictitious space explorer captured by aliens. To win their release, they must correctly explain the neurophysiology underlying some of the punishments used by the aliens to deter attempts at escape. The pur...
By Ling Chen, Richard Hendrix
Focusing on the important role of water in living cellular chemistry, this case emphasizes the general solubility rule, "like dissolves like," which explains how water can serve as a medium for transporting the cell's soluble nutrients and wastes. Th...
By Rosemary H. Ford
A longstanding belief that has it roots in Native American folklore is that the crushed leaves of jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) relieve the skin's allergic reaction to the toxin of poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). This case was developed for an ...
By Jennifer Feenstra
Two friends debate whether people leave their parking spaces faster if others are waiting. They decide to see if they can design a study to test their ideas. In this interrupted case study, students develop a research question and hypothesis an...
By Monica E. Hartmann, Robert J. Werner
This case study uses the Zimbabwean experience with hyperinflation to give students an opportunity to apply a variety of economic concepts to a real world event. The topics include, but are not limited to, scarcity, production possibility frontier, s...
Tragic Choices: Autism, Measles, and the MMR Vaccine
By Matthew P. Rowe
This case explores the purported connection between vaccines in general, and the MMR vaccine specifically, and autism. Students examine results from the 1998 Lancet article that ignited and still fuels the anti-vaccine movement; students are then ask...
By David J. Grise
In this interrupted case study, students read about a college student with phenylketonuria (PKU). Students learn how diet affects a person with PKU and how PKU is inherited. The case is designed to introduce introductory biology students to the...
Dredge Today, Restore Tomorrow
By Kristine N. Hopfensperger
In this case study, students role-play members of a task force whose task it is to advise the Director of the National Park Service (their instructor) on the best location for creating a wetland using dredge material from the Potomac River. Stu...
By Peggy Brickman
In this "clicker" case, based on a TV drama about a family secret that only knowledge of genetics can solve, students apply what they have read and heard about genetic diseases to determine familial relationships and predict the chance that a family ...
Helicobacter pylori and the Bacterial Theory of Ulcers
By Debra A. Meuler
This case is an account of the events that led Drs. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall to the bacterial theory of ulcers. The two physicians refused to accept the standard explanations for what they had observed and instead developed an alternative hypo...
By Bruno Borsari
This "clicker case" was developed for a general biology course for non-majors. It focuses on prairie habitat ecology and restoration. Jim, a young ecologist, has created a reconstructed prairie in his backyard. His neighbors don't like it and they ha...
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 ...
By Bruno Borsari
This "clicker case" follows a professor and his students in a study abroad course in Tanzania who are searching for human fossils in an effort to better understand where humans come from. The case story, presented as a PowerPoint presentation, is com...
By William Morgan, Dean Fraga
This case study follows a young couple that is consulting with a genetic counselor about their plans to have a child. Because of their family history with cystic fibrosis, they are concerned about their chances of having a child with this genetic dis...