JoinAll Case Studies
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Suggested Keywords, to help with your search (besides selecting subjects): clicker cases, directed cases, interrupted cases, discussion cases, intimate debate cases. As a reminder, all cases may be adjusted to meet the needs of your student level. See our case use guidelines.
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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...
By Susan M. DeSimone, Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
In this interrupted case study, a young wrestler considers purchasing 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) online as a means to drop weight quickly. However, a finding that it may have killed someone concerns him. Through progressive disclosure of information, st...
By Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
The classic example of a human trait that behaves in a clear Mendelian fashion is human eye color. The gene that controls it exists in two forms: a dominant brown allele and a recessive blue allele....
A Case of Respiratory Distress
By Brahmadeo Dewprashad, Geraldine S. Vaz, Sharon A. Vaz (rr)
This clinical case study was developed to engage students by making connections between core concepts in chemistry and physiological processes in the body. The case pertains to medication-induced methemoglobinemia, its etiology, diagnosis, and treatm...
Girl Pulled Alive from Ruins, 15 Days after Earthquake
By Susan B. Chaplin
This case examines the integrated physiological response to dehydration and starvation from the real-life report of a girl discovered 15 days after an earthquake devastated Port Au-Prince, Haiti, in January 2010. From the meager scientifically releva...
By Caralyn B. Zehnder
This case examines mercury bioaccumulation and biomagnification within the context of the human health impacts of ingesting food (specifically, fish) contaminated with mercury. It was inspired by a 2009 USGS report on mercury in fish, sediment, and w...
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 Brahmadeo Dewprashad, Geraldine S. Vaz
This case study was developed to engage students by making connections between core concepts in chemistry and obesity related factors. The case is in the form of a story between two friends and their underestimation of the calories they consumed in a...
By Patrick R. Field
This analysis case explores second-hand smoke and its impact on the decision to institute a smoking ban in the outdoor seating area of a popular coffee bar. In working through the case, students discuss the medical, ethical, legal, and societal...
By Martha Jane Goleman, Doug M. Post (rr), Michael S. Langan, Allison A. Macerollo
In this medical ethics case, a fourth-year medical student making hospital rounds with an attending physician and several residents is asked by a family member of a patient to pray with her. The case allows medical students to explore issues re...
The Mystery of the Seven Deaths
By Michaela Gazdik Stofer
In this interrupted case study, students learn about the function of cellular respiration and the electron transport chain and what happens when that function is impaired. The case is loosely based on the real-life 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders where ...
Nutrient Cycles and Pollution, Lake Michigan Style
By Cheryl A. Heinz
This “clicker case” introduces students to the basics of nutrient cycling using a recent example of the expansion of a refinery on Lake Michigan. The story is told through a series of news clips from Chicago’s National Public Radio affiliate, W...
A Perfect Storm in the Operating Room
By Kelley W. Grorud
In this interrupted case study, a high school biology student shadows her uncle, an anesthesiologist, at a hospital for a school assignment. She witnesses a patient who has an unusual reaction to his anesthesia and nearly dies. As they try to d...
Resistance is Futile - Or Is It?
By Annie Prud’homme-Genereux
While the majority of people are prone to HIV infection, some individuals remain uninfected despite repeated exposure. This case study is based on the landmark paper by Paxton et al. (1996) that uncovered some of the mechanisms of protection against ...
The "Wolfman" and the Chromosomal Basis of Heredity
By Nancy A. Rice
This “clicker case” tells the story of Danny Gomez, a Mexican circus performer, and his family in order to teach basic principles of genetics and chromosomal inheritance. Five generations of the Gomez family suffer from a very rare disease called...
By Terry Platt
In this “clicker case,” a three-year-old girl gets into the medicine cabinet and ingests an unknown number of aspirin tablets. Her brother calls 911 and the girl is taken to a nearby hospital, where she is treated. The case is used to discuss the...
By Kristina Hannam
This “clicker case” focuses on the food web of the riparian bird communities of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystemand how community structure and productivity may be influenced by top-down mechanisms, resulting in a trophic cascade. As students ex...
Fishing for Answers in the Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone
By Kristina Hannam
This “clicker case” addresses the eutrophication of aquatic systems caused by human activities. "Susan" is a biology student working at a seafood restaurant on the Gulf of Mexico. She discovers that the restaurant doesn't serve locally caught shr...
By Kristina Hannam
This "clicker case" is based on the General Biology edition of James Hewlett’s “Bad Fish” case in our collection. The case follows the story of biologist Dr. Westwood, who is accidentally poisoned, first while traveling in Asia and then in the ...
By Nancy M. Boury
This "clicker case" focuses on the invasive aquarium strain of Caulerpa taxifolia as a way of introducing students to issues about invasive species. Specifically, students learn to identify some of the traits that make a species potentially invasive ...
By Sheri L. Boyce
An Amish infant suddenly dies and law enforcement officials suspect the parents of child abuse. But experts who advocate for the parents argue that an underlying genetic disorder common among the Amish may have resulted in the baby’s death. Student...
Eating PCBs from Lake Ontario - The Clicker Version
By Eric Ribbens
This is a “clicker” adaptation of another case in our collection, “Eating PCBs from Lake Ontario: Is There an Effect or Not?” (2001), written by the same author. It encourages students to examine how scientific results get presented and inter...
By Jennifer Y. Anderson, Diane R. Wang, Ling Chen
Tom and his grandfather, a retired high school chemistry teacher, are talking about a National Geographic television documentary titled “Waking the Baby Mammoth.” As students read the dialogue that ensues, they learn how carbon, an essential elem...
By Keely Roen
In this interrupted case study, students view a documentary film about a coyote hunting contest and then assume the role of various stakeholders in coyote management in the western United States to explore issues associated with wildlife management. ...