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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By Kari A. Mergenhagen
This case study presents a fictitious bio-terrorist plan to release anthrax in the United States. Students are assigned character roles and, through research, role-playing, and teamwork, develop a plan to minimize or avert the attack. The case is app...
By Lisa Marie Rubin
Using a combination of directed case method and role-playing in which students learn about their roles using the jigsaw technique, this case study teaches about the main concepts of stem cell research and therapy and the political and ethical issues ...
How a Cancer Trial Ended in Betrayal
By Ye Chen-Izu
In this case study, students learn about the complexities and issues associated with clinical trials. After reading a newspaper story about a fraudulently conducted clinical trial involving a treatment for skin cancer, students simulate their own sma...
By Christopher T. Bailey
In this particular take on the classic “Black Box Experiment,” students working in groups are given sealed boxes containing objects that they must make indirect observations about and then report their observations to the class in a simulated con...
Between the Living and the Dead
By Kari A. Mergenhagen
As Jen pores over her introductory biology textbook, she falls asleep and enters a nightmarish world in which bacteria and viruses dwarf human beings. This engagingly written case explores the differences between viruses and bacteria while teaching a...
Rabbit Calicivirus Disease - Magic Bullet or Pandora's Box?
By Gary M. Fortier
The characters in this dilemma case, representing the scientific community and government, must make a decision about whether or not to release a virulent pathogen into the environment in order to control the rapidly expanding population of European ...
An Electrical Storm on the Horizon
By Alan Cheville
In this fictional case study, the state of Oklahoma has profited by giving incentives for companies to build power plants in rural areas of the state. The "scrubbing" systems used to minimize air pollution create potentially hazardous solid waste.&nb...
Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis
By Eric Ribbens
This case is based on a research paper about the lignin content of genetically modified corn published in the American Journal of Botany. Students are asked to analyze and discuss the paper, focusing on questions related to experimental design and in...
Sometimes It Is All in the Genes
By Anne Galbraith, David R. Howard
Nancy, five months pregnant, agrees to a routine genetic test that indicates she carries the mutation for the fatal disease, cystic fibrosis. She convinces her husband to get tested and discovers that he too is a carrier. Knowing that there is a 25 p...
By Jennifer Miskowski, Anne Galbraith
The overall goal of this case is to introduce students to the genetic basis of cancer while teaching them about melanoma. The fictional protagonist of the case is 20-year-old Judy. Fair-haired and fair-skinned, Judy covets the kind of suntan that her...
By Lisa Marie Rubin, Clyde Freeman Herreid
The main character of this case is Denise, who we first meet in the early morning hours as she wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. But it is her husband, Jeremy, who has been diagnosed with heart disease, not her. What’s going on? In this...
By Bruce C. Allen, Clyde Freeman Herreid
The goal of this dilemma case study is to teach students about global climate change. The setting is a faculty meeting where the discussion has turned to a petition circulating in the scientific community against signing the Kyoto Treaty.  ...
By David R. Luginbuhl
This case introduces the concept of a software review. The central character, a programmer named Mike, thinks he—and not his code—is the focus of the review. The lead reviewers, Beverly and Paul, are programmers responsible for developing other p...
By Stephen C. Nold
In this interrupted case study, students explore the environmental consequences of Antarctic research as they design experiments to assess the impact of disposing untreated sewage from a research station into the ocean. Students review experimental m...
By Philip Camill
This case makes use of the concept of the "ecological footprint," developed by Wackernagel and colleagues to quantify the amount of land area required to sustain the lifestyle of a population of any size. Students calculate their consumption of energ...
Genetic Testing and Breast Cancer
By Charlotte R. Zales, Joseph C. Colosi
In this dilemma case, the central character, Kathy, must decide whether or not to be tested for known mutations in the breast cancer genes. Students assume the roles of members of Kathy’s book club and, using a jigsaw technique, explore the advanta...
To Test or Not to Test the Software
By Junaid Ahmed Zubairi
In 1991, faulty computer instructions caused a massive shutdown of phone systems in several major cities in the U.S., including Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The instructions were part of a revised version of software tha...
By Lauren E. Yaich
Samantha and her husband Brad have two children, conceived with the help of in vitro fertilization treatments. After viewing a TV program on stem cells and their potential medical uses, Samantha is convinced that they should donate the remaining froz...
By Sarah K. Huber, Paula P. Lemons
In this case study, students learn about introduced species and how they pose a threat to biodiversity by analyzing the impact of introduced species on the native bird populations of the Hawaiian Islands. Developed for an introductory biology course,...
By Alan Paul Price
In this dilemma case, Congresswoman Madeline Gibson must cast her vote on the fate of the lower Snake River dams. The stakeholders in this decision represent government agencies, small businesses, large industries, farmers, local tribes, environmenta...
By Thomas A. Cappaert
While backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, Joel loses his way and finds that his experience hiking and camping in his home state of Florida hasn't prepared him for springtime weather conditions in the mountains. This case study allows students to rev...
By David L. Evans
Students learn about the interconnectedness of the body, with a particular focus on the skin as one of the most important homeostatic organ systems, in this case study in which the protagonist sets out on a three-hour drive across the Arizona desert ...
By Herbert House (rr)
This case is based on the real-life incident of a boy whose arm was bitten off by a bull shark while swimming off the coast of Florida in the summer of 2001. After the boy’s arm was retrieved from the shark’s mouth, it was surgically reattached....
By Eleonora Del Federico, Steven T. Diver, Monika I. Konaklieva, Richard Ludescher
In this dilemma case, the central character, a museum curator, must decide whether or not to show a painting as a hitherto “undiscovered” Cezanne. The stylistic analysis suggests it is for real, but data obtained using different spectroscopic tec...
By Jennifer Hayes-Klosteridis
This dilemma case, designed for use in an undergraduate genetics course, explores the basic genetic concepts underlying the cloning process as well as the ethical, medical, political, economic, and religious issues surrounding human cloning. While th...
By Susan Holt
In this case study, students are asked to consider whether there is evidence to adequately support a series of scientific claims made in an advertisement for pheromones. The case teaches students about the scientific method and the process of science...
By Kate Rittenhouse-Olson
This dilemma case was designed for a junior level immunology course. It could also be used in a microbiology or bacteriology course where the emphasis is on treatment as well as disease....
Are You Blue? What Can You Do?
By Robert W. Grossman, Amy Pettigrew, Linda Walsh, Kathleen Boje
This case study introduces students to treatment alternatives for depression using a jigsaw method in which groups of students are divided up so that each member of the “home group” becomes the “resident expert” in one of five possible treatm...
By Karin Gastreich
In this case study, students are given the task of developing a recovery plan to protect a recently discovered population of Central American squirrel monkeys on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. In the process they must determine whether the populati...
By Tangi Mitchell, Cheryl L. Watson
In this two-part case study on the nervous system, students learn about neural pathways. The case scenarios are drawn from real life and require students to explain the physiological mechanisms at work. The first scenario is designed for freshmen lev...
By Alan Cheville, Misa Scepanovic
A motion picture company (circa 1950) is having problems with antiquated equipment. The director, actors, and crew all want the CEO of the company, who is notorious for being tight with money, to invest in a newly developed zoom lens. Students are as...
By Julia Omarzu
This dilemma case is based on the true story of Jack and Lisa Nash, whose daughter Molly was born with a rare genetic disorder, Fanconi anemia. By having another child with specific genetic markers, the Nashes hoped to cure Molly using stem cells fro...
Search for the Missing Sea Otters
By Mary Allen, Mark L. Kuhlmann
Using a progressive disclosure format, this case study teaches students how to apply ecological principles to a real-life ecological problem, namely, the decline in sea otter populations in Alaska. Students interpret data from graphs and tables and p...
By Christa Colyer
Developed for an upper-level undergraduate instrumental analysis course, this case actively engages students in an understanding of the abstract, often difficult to grasp, concepts of the van Deemter equation, important in the field of chemical separ...
By James A. Hewlett
This case involves the transfer of a food allergy to a patient who received a combined kidney and liver transplant from a donor who died as the result of an allergic reaction. In addition to learning about the various roles of immune cells, the physi...
The Effects of Coyote Removal in Texas
By Margaret A. Carroll
This interrupted case study presents published data on the effect of coyote removal in Texas. It was designed to help students in introductory level biology courses understand trophic level relationships and the role of keystone species. Students int...
Is a Mars Sample Return Mission Too Risky?
By Troy D. Wood
Following a public hearing format, this case study allows students to explore the scientific and public policy issues surrounding the advisability of a return mission to Mars for further sampling and, more generally, the question of whether or not th...
By Lisa Marie Rubin, Clyde Freeman Herreid
This case teaches about the causes and effects of Type 2 diabetes by working through the various options available to a young Native American woman suffering from the disease. The case can be used in a variety of settings, including nutrition classro...
By Clyde Freeman Herreid
In chronicling the life and death of a woman who developed diabetes as a teenager, this case study explores such basic science topics as metabolism, hormones, cell receptors, eye anatomy, and immunology as well as issues in nutrition, exercise, stem ...
Does a One-Size Drug Dose Fit All?
By Kathleen Boje
The purpose of this case study is to make students aware that some patients may require individualized drug dosing regimens based on a variety of patient variables. The central classroom activity consists of small group work in which students analyze...