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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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...
By Rachael A. Lancor
This case study of Hurricane Katrina chronicles a college student's adventures with the Hurricane Hunters, a group of people from the Air Force Reserve who fly into the middle of hurricanes to collect atmospheric data for the National Oceanic and Atm...
By Celeste A. Leander, Robert J. Huskey
This interrupted case study begins with the construction of a pedigree following an initial encounter with a clan of “blue people.” After constructing a pedigree, students decide whether the condition (methemoglobinemia) is a heritable trait. Stu...
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...
Mini Cases in Movement Disorders
By Antoinette Miller
This collection of six short cases focuses on brain areas and neurotransmitters involved in the control of movement. Students are divided into working groups and given one or more of the case descriptions. Each scenario depicts a breakdown in the mot...
By Eric Ribbens
Ed is dying. How should his wishes for medical treatment be carried out? As the case unfolds, students explore the rights and responsibilities of doctors, patients, and patient representatives regarding difficult medical decisions. Specifically, stud...
By Karen A. Pinco
This case study was developed to complement the study of the immune system and to emphasize the crosstalk that occurs at the cellular level between B and T cells for proper immune system function. In reading the story of a young couple trying to unde...
By Lynn Diener
Cell signaling is one of the more difficult concepts for students to understand in their study of cell biology. To help students better understand the process of cell signaling, from reception to cellular response, a fairly simple signal pathway is u...
The Case of a Tropical Disease and its Treatment
By Catherine Dana Santanello, Jennifer Rehg
This case study highlights the epidemiological and socioeconomic factors associated with a disease which plagues thousands of people in Central and South America. The case follows the story of Adrian, a banana plantation worker in southwestern ...
When Drug Sales and Science Collide
By Elizabeth R. McCain, Cindy Trussell
When "Jeff," a fictionalized drug representative, is placed on the Vioxx® account in 2001, he finds himself pulled between sales and science as he struggles to reconcile three original documents: a Merck marketing pamphlet, a graph from a scientific...
By Li-hsuan Yang
Does an ice cube melt more quickly in salt water or in freshwater? The answer surprises the group of student science teachers portrayed in this case study. To explain the phenomenon they must figure out the interactions between two clusters of concep...
By Conrad Toepfer
In this interrupted case study, students apply the scientific method to probe possible reasons behind declining marine iguana populations in the Galapagos Islands. Initially students are given rudimentary information and encouraged to generate wide-r...
By Michèle I. Shuster, Karen Peterson
This case study takes a combined directed and discussion approach to explore risk factors for breast cancer. After a preparatory reading assignment, students assess various medical histories derived from actual women with breast cancer and rank their...
Giving Birth to Someone Else's Children?
By Jessica Hutchison
Most students have heard about situations in which the paternity of a child is questioned, but maternity? This case was designed for introductory biology students and asks them to develop hypotheses to explain how a mother cannot be genetically relat...
The Case of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
By Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall, Jennifer Merriam, Ruth Ann Greuling
Based on the disputed rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in April 2005, this interrupted case study tells the story of a fictional character, "Brad Murky," a student and research assistant who must decide whether the current evidence is suffi...
The Irresistible Costs of Impressing Others
By Jamie G. McMinn
Recent research indicates that people who boast to friends and those who are modest to strangers are less able to regulate their behaviors on other tasks. This case study presents a scenario in which four college roommates use different strategies to...
By Jacqueline Washington, Anne Zayaitz
When a newborn develops symptoms eerily similar to those of an older sibling who died shortly after birth, his Mennonite parents are understandably alarmed. They soon discover that their son has Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD), a recessively inherit...
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...
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...
By Karen M. Aguirre
Dengue (pronounced "deng-ee") is a viral disease transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito, usually Aedes aegypti. It is common in tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia, India, South and Central America, and Mexico. There is concern that ...
By Sohum Sohoni, Matt Reiten
The storyline of this case study describes a failure of a central system (much like the Internet of today) that occurs in the future, with some degree of mystery as to the cause. Originally designed for a junior level introductory course on microproc...
By David K. Spierer, Sandra Williams, Jim Lyttle
Two speakers have been invited to a town hall meeting to help decide a hotly contested issue. A grant has been awarded to the school district with the stipulation that the money be dedicated to only one program. School officials wish to use the funds...
Streams of Coal or Streams of Death?
By Linda Niedziela
Mary Beth was raised in Western Pennsylvania, an area where thousands of abandoned coal mines have led to extensive contamination of streams and associated ground waters. Aquatic life has clearly suffered, but the health effects on people living alon...
By Philip J. Stephens
This interrupted case study in cardiovascular physiology focuses on Suzie, a determined young woman who is training hard for the upcoming figure skating season. But family dynamics combined with high aspirations of competing in the Olympic Games have...
The Medicinal Use of Marijuana
By Clyde Freeman Herreid, Kristie DuRei
Whether marijuana should be legalized for medicinal purposes has been contested for decades. The claims, counter-claims, issues, and judgments in this high profile controversy make it an excellent candidate for “intimate debate.” While similar to...
By Susan Behrens, Linda Carozza
This case study on clinical practice, preparation, and acumen follows the story of Emily, an intelligent, hard working, and motivated student who yet encounters difficulties in the clinical fieldwork component of her senior seminar. A follow-up secti...
The Fate and Transport of Toxic Releases
By David W. Kelley
The release of toxins into the environment and the federal government's tracking of that using the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are the focus of this case study, which uses GIS to explore th...
By Cathy Silver Key
In this directed case study, students read about a little girl with beta-thalassemia, a life-threatening disease. Through a series of increasingly complex activities, they learn how alternative pre-mRNA processing (splicing) has caused her disease an...
By Wilma V. Colon Parrilla
In this case study, students analyze a scientific study, first by analyzing news articles reporting on the research and then by reading the original research article. In working through the case, students identify the basic elements of a scientific s...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
This case is based upon a real experience. It is written as an exercise for faculty to discuss, perhaps in a brown bag seminar at lunch time. In many ways it represents a rather common type of problem, cheating—what to do about it and how to preven...
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 Richard Cowlishaw, Charles Hunter, Jason Coy, Michael Tessmer
This case is a classroom simulation of the types of negotiations that went into the Kyoto Protocol agreement on limiting global greenhouse gas emissions. It was developed for an environmental science course for first-year college students with minima...
By Linda Markowitz, Catherine Dana Santanello
The main objective of this case is to have students critically examine the costs and the benefits associated with ecotourism, a form of tourism usuallly involving visiting fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas intended as ...
By Wayne Shew (rr)
This case, based on an actual case of product tampering that occurred in Seattle in 1986, was designed for use in an introductory course in forensic science for non-science majors. By working through the case, students gain an understanding of the va...
By Melinda Box
This case study, developed for an introductory chemistry course as part of a two-year dental hygiene curriculum, teaches students how to apply gas properties and gas storage identification systems to identify a mishandled or mislabeled gas cylinder. ...
By Susan M. Galatowitsch, Barbara A. Peichel
The essential elements of this dilemma case are based on a real-life wetland mitigation problem. A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has to decide whether to improve a wetland adversely impacted by toxins or restore another site inste...
A Case of X-linked Agammaglobulinemia
By David F. Dean (rr)
Though a normal, full-term baby at birth, starting at about 10 months of age “Billy DeWitt” has suffered a series of infections, including sinusitis, otitis media, and pneumonia. Students read a brief clinical history of the patient and a descrip...
By David F. Dean (rr)
Seven-year-old “Jason Hornbuckle” has been complaining for the past 12 hours of pain when he swallows. He also has a headache and has vomited twice. His mother decides to take him to the pediatrician. Students read a brief clini...
A Case of Iron Deficiency Anemia
By David F. Dean (rr)
“Dolores Welborn,” a 28-year-old attorney, is pregnant with her first child. Lately she has been tiring easily and is often short of breath. She has also had periods of light-headedness, cramping in her legs, and a sore tongue. Students read a br...
By David F. Dean (rr)
“Carolyn Jones” is a 40-year-old professor of economics. The past week she has felt tried and weak. The past few days she has noticed small, red dots on her skin and gums. Even more upsetting, she cut herself while making dinner and the wou...