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.
Grade level filtering: enter desired grade levels in the Keywords box and click Apply.
By Sheri L. Boyce
Ellie is a struggling college student on the brink of failing her physiology course; not surprisingly, she exhibits many classic signs of stress. However, a visit to the health clinic reveals that she may be suffering from more than just stress. In t...
Chemical Eric - The Clicker Version
By Eric Ribbens
This “clicker case” is a modified version of a case originally published in the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science case collection in 2006, “Chemical Eric: Dealing with the Disintegration of Central Control,” by the same autho...
By Jeanne Ting Chowning
This case study investigates the applications of genetics to medicine by exploring one of the first examples of a pharmacogenetic test to enter mainstream clinical practice. Pharmacogenetics examines how genetic variations in an individual correlate ...
By William D. Rogers
In this “clicker case,” Ryan, a college student, receives an email from the campus health education office urging students to get a flu shot. Ryan thinks it is too late since he just had the stomach flu, and besides, even if he did catch it, he w...
By Cheryl D. Davis, Nancy A. Rice
This case is a “clicker” adaptation of a similarly titled case by Merle Heidemann and Gerald Urquhart of Michigan State University, “A Can of Bull?” The story introduces students to basic principles of metabolism and energy through a biochemi...
Global Climate Change: Evidence and Causes
By Maureen Knabb, Timothy M. Lutz, G. Winfield Fairchild
This “clicker case” begins by assessing students’ impressions of global climate change and the role that human activities play in recent global warming trends. Students assume the role of an intern working for a U.S. senator. They need to under...
Global Climate Change: Impact and Remediation
By Maureen Knabb, Timothy M. Lutz
This “clicker case” is a continuation of another case in our collection, “Global Climate Change: Evidence and Causes,” in which students assumed the role of an intern working for a U.S. senator so that they could advise the senator on future ...
Baby Doe v. The Prenatal Clinic
By Norris Armstrong
This "clicker case" presents a fictionalized story about a couple ("John" and "Jane") whose new baby is born with Down syndrome; the parents are suing the prenatal clinic where Jane received her care, blaming the clinic for the baby’s condition. De...
Agony and Ecstasy: Cell Membrane Structure and Function
By Norris Armstrong
This “clicker case” follows Susan, an intern at a local hospital, who has admitted a patient she discovers has used the drug Ecstasy. The girl becomes delirious, and Susan begins to suspect that she may be suffering from water intoxication. The c...
One Headache After Another: Biochemistry Edition
By Ann T.S. Taylor, William H. Cliff
Topamax®, developed to treat epilepsy, is also used as a preventative for migraine. In this case study, students read about a woman experiencing a side-effect of Topamax and from there move to a review of acid-base balance in the human body. The cas...
One Headache After Another: Physiology Edition
By Ann T.S. Taylor, William H. Cliff
Topamax®, developed to treat epilepsy, is also used as a preventative for migraine. In this case study, students read about a woman experiencing a side-effect of Topamax and from there move to a review of acid-base balance in the human body. The cas...
By Thomas Horvath
This "clicker case" about female mimicry in spawning salmon was developed for an introductory-level, non-majors biology course to help address one of the most common misconceptions that students have about natural selection, namely, that only the "st...
By Peggy Brickman
In this “clicker case,” students learn about meiosis through the real-life story of a couple who used pre-implantation genetic screening to select an embryo that was a genetic match for an older sibling with leukemia, and thus able to provide a s...
The Ecological Footprint Dilemma
By Bruno Borsari
Is it better to have a new parking lot on campus or use that space to develop a community garden? This is the issue presented in this "clicker case," which pulls students into the decision-making process. Students learn about concepts related to sust...
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 William D. Rogers
This “clicker case” explores the biological basis for the temporary euphoria that accompanies drug use as well as certain aspects of the biological basis of drug dependency. The case is called a clicker case because it is designed for use with pe...
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 Frank J. Dinan, Thomas R. Stabler, Renee Larson
This interrupted case study highlights the importance of energy considerations within food chains by examining the population decline of Steller sea lions along the western Alaskan coast. A ban on commercial fishing of pollock in the 1970s caused a s...
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...
You Are Not the Mother of Your Children
By Stephen R. Cronin
This case is based on a true story of a woman whose children were almost taken from her because her DNA profile indicated that she was not the mother of her children. The interrupted case study follows the woman, her lawyer, and a research biologist ...
By Elaine S. Chapman (rr)
Based on a real incident, this case features an older woman who has been injured on a ski slope. Her classic knee injury, often referred to as the “Terrible Triad of O’Donahue,” is complicated by her age, the altitude, and possible hypothermia....
By Ryan Doyle, Matthew Heslin, Michael Keller, Philip J. Stephens
This interrupted case study in cardiovascular and nerve physiology focuses on Lynn, a married woman with a young child whose husband is often away from home traveling on business. Lynn is anxious and short-tempered. She is also overweight and appears...
By Robert Leaf, Brian R. Murphy
In this case, students read about a biologist who needs to determine how to analyze age-at-length data, a common situation in fisheries biology. The fictional Dr. Latimer is tasked with fitting non-linear models to the data, and the case develops as ...
By Courtney E. Quinn, John E. Quinn
This PowerPoint case (~2.4 MB) was developed for an undergraduate, non-majors course in conservation biology. It explores the controversy surrounding land purchases in the Patagonia region of Chile and Argentina. According to local indigenous peoples...
By Claudia Bode, Alan Gleue, Carolyn Pearson
This case study follows a family’s dilemma about how to save money on gasoline. Should they keep their SUV and trade in their Corolla for a hybrid sedan? Going from 28 (Corolla) to 48 (Hybrid) miles per gallon (MPG) should really save money on gas....
By Jacinth Maynard, Mary Puterbaugh Mulcahy, Daniel Kermick
In the 1920s, biologist and statistician Ronald Fisher met a woman who claimed she could taste whether a cup of tea was prepared by adding milk before or after the tea. Fisher’s essay about the tea party may be one of the first cases published to t...
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...
By Maureen Knabb
This “clicker case” introduces students to a rare genetic disease in which an enzyme is deficient in a critical metabolic pathway—the first step in aerobic respiration. Based on a real-life situation, the case challenges students to make connec...
By Melanie K. Rathburn, Karina J. Baum
Many students take the availability of water for granted. This case study, which focuses on the Cochabamba water revolt in Bolivia, is designed to encourage students to think about water as a limited natural resource. Students learn about the limited...
By Phoebe R. Stubblefield, Elizabeth Scharf
Students explore the issues involved in investigating and reporting on a scatter of skeletal remains to the police in this case study. In addition, the case teaches students about skeletal identification and the quantification of skeletal eleme...
By Karen E. Bledsoe
When Mitchell reveals that he is going on a low-carb diet, Janine tries to talk him out of it, telling him that he’s too thin as it is and doesn’t need to loose any weight. Designed to accompany a nonmajors unit on human anatomy and physiology, t...
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 Kathleen Archer, Lauren Sahl
This interrupted case study focuses on the seasonal hypoxic area in the Gulf of Mexico known as the Dead Zone. It follows Sue, a college student, whose father is a commercial fisherman affected by the lack of fish in his usual fishing grounds in the ...
By Catherine Dana Santanello
Blake is sick. With his background in the sciences and a little help from the Internet, he should be able to do a self-diagnosis. Or can he? As the case unfolds, students follow the course of Blake's illness. Part I of the cas...
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 Susan Fredstrom
When Jill’s roommate Nancy starts using a nutritional product to improve her energy and lose weight, Jill goes searching for information about it. Her search leads her to nutrition labels, websites and, as she digs deeper, the results of scientific...
By Elizabeth Clark
In this case study, students hear arguments on both sides of a debate over wildlife management and must integrate ethical and scientific perspectives to formulate their own opinions. The case as written is most appropriate for an environmental ethics...
By Antoinette Miller
This series of mini cases focuses on language deficits (aphasias) and their likely organic causes (problems in specific brain areas). Students read one of the six cases, which are based on actual cases reported in the literature, and connect the symp...
By Mark L. Kuhlmann
In this case study, students examine data from a number of published studies of the effects of Pacific salmon on freshwater and riparian ecosystems. The case focuses on the interesting phenomenon of spawning salmon acting as nutrient conveyor belts, ...