In the Zone – Human Biology Resources for Schools
In the Zone is the Wellcome Trust’s major NEW initiative inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It provides a fun, free and fascinating way of using science to discover how our bodies work during sport, activity, movement and rest.
The website is aimed at both primary and secondary schools with two different sections. Both sections contain interactive games which can be used on the interactive whiteboard.
Teachers packs are available for download containing lesson plans, worksheets and ideas for science investigations. It’s a great free resource.
If you are a UK school then keep an eye out for the In the Zone pack which is being sent to every school in the UK in Feb/March. Each box contains a teaching guide, curriculum guide, challenge cards and all of the scientific equipment you need to do the investigations on the website. Make sure your office staff know it’s coming, and not to put it in a cupboard.
Find out more here : http://www.getinthezone.org.uk/
Let me know what you think of the resources in the comments below.
Read MoreBioDigital Human – A 3D Interactive Body
I missed the news when it came out, but it looks like Google is going to retire their Google Body Browser, which is a real shame because, as a Biologist, I really liked that site. Apparently it wil be relaunched in the future in association with a company called Zygote Media. There’s no indication when Google Body will be taken down at present.
But in preparation for its departure, here’s a similar site that is well worth bookmarking as an alternative: BioDigital Human.
BioDigital Human works in the same way as Google Body – you can choose between a male and a female body, can decide which organ systems you wish to make visible and can pan and zoom around the entire body. For teaching about the human body it’s fantastic.
Sadly there’s no “cow mode” (for now) 
Take a look now at : http://www.biodigitalhuman.com/
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Read MoreTime Tree – timescale of life
TimeTree is a public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life. A search utility allows exploration of the thousands of divergence times among organisms in the published literature.
Names of two taxa to be compared are entered in the search window and the results are presented on a separate page. For example how far back did humans and bananas split?
There’s a lot of additional information on the results page. I’d suggest this site is best suited for post-16 students.
Check it out at http://www.timetree.org/
Also check out this post on The Tree of Life resources from the BBC which may be more useful for younger students.
Read MoreOnline games for Biology Students
rEvolution is a collection of online games, designed to introduce and reinforce key concepts in biology, ecology and plant science. They might make handy activities for your science students at the end of term, as a plenary, or for a STEM Club. Suitable for KS3/4/5
You can play the games here : http://www.saps.org.uk/secondary/beyond-the-classroom/545
This is part of the Science and Plants in Schools website which has some excellent resources for both Primary and Secondary teachers. It’s definitely worth taking a look at the rest of the site : http://www.saps.org.uk
Healthline 3D Human Body Viewer
Healthline BodyMaps is an handy tool which provides a set of searchable body maps. It includes colored, interactive maps of everything from the pancreas to the digestive system to the body as a whole.
BodyMaps uses Flash so does not require the download of any additional software. This should make it useful for those of you with older browsers who can’t access Google Body. Will mean you can’t access it on your iPad though 
The interface is reasonaly simple and easy to navigate. You can choose either a male or female body, and mouse over parts of the body to get information on body parts. It’s a shame you can’t view the body in Full-Screen view though.
Above the central image a row of icons allow you to choose between different system views : muscular, skeletal, etc. Above the figure you can also navigate by search term.
Click on the Body Menu button to reveal a list of body parts – choose any of these for a zoomed in image of that organ – which you can scroll around.For example here’s a close up look at the heart.
The information on health and disease would also make it a handy reference guide for health and fitness topics in Science / PE.
I still think I prefer Google Body, since you can view this in full-screen, but this is a handy alternative.
Check it out here : http://www.healthline.com/human-body-maps
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How Now Google Cow
Just a quick post to point out that if you haven’t seen Google Body Browser, it now comes with added Bovine goodness. (Firefox 4 or Chrome needed to access)
In addition to the female body that was used in the beta version, you can now explore a male body and even that of a cow.
I heard initially that this may have been an April Fools prank, given the day it was released, but someone from Google tweeted me to say it was staying. Which I think is great.
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/arthurblume/status/54526493073743872"]
I’m now hoping for more animals to get added. It would be great for comparative anatomy – compare the skeletons of a human, a cow, a giraffe and a whale for example. How do they compare? Do giraffes have more bones in their neck or just the same bones, bigger? How about a bird or a fish?
To access the body : a href=”http://goo.gl/body”>http://goo.gl/body and to access the cow use a href=”http://goo.gl/cow”>http://goo.gl/cow
Nice one Google!
Read MoreMuseum of the Dead
The Open University have created a fun little resource called the Museum of the Dead. Venture inside and behold the tombs of creatures who became extinct in the 2010s; read the tales of their demise and discover which poor soul could be next if humankind continues to destroy biodiversity…
Via the site, the OU is trying to provoke discussions on species loss, conservation and extinction as well as entertain. There are also links on the end screen that can be followed to learn more about the environment and the wildlife that surrounds us.
Thanks to Vital’s Science Portal for the link.
Visit the Museum of the Dead here.
Read MoreABPI Science and Medicine Resources
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is the trade association for more than 75 companies in the UK producing prescription medicines. Its member companies research, develop, manufacture and supply more than 80 per cent of the medicines prescribed through the National Health Service (NHS).
The ABPI Resources for Schools website provides curriculum related resources for use by teachers and their pupils. The resources have been developed by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and many link topics studied in school to their application in industry and in research.
Interactive resource on the site link the science taught in schools to its use in the workplace and, particularly, to the treatment of disease. Materials cover topics within the school curriculum from primary through to post-16, with information, animations and ‘test yourself’ quizzes.
Biological GCSE topics covered include:
Diabetes
Genes and inheritance
Heart and circulation
Hormones
Some of the content is useful in other areas of the curriculum, including PSHE/Citizenship, History, PE, Religious Studies, Health & Social Care.
The site also includes other resources and lesson materials which you can download.
Read MoreGoogle Body Browser
This is something I have been waiting ages to see. I love Google Earth, Google Sky, Google Moon etc. But there was nothing for a biologist like me. I remember asking on Twitter in October if there would ever be a Google Maps for the human body. And now there is. Google Body browser.
Google Body gives you a fully-explorable 3D body. You can move about, zoom in, like you can in Google Earth. And it’s fast – very responsive – at least on my home computer anyway. At the moment it wont run in every browser (see later) but hopefully that will change very soon.
The slider on the left hand side lets you reveal different body systems, such as the muscular, skeletal, digestive and nervous. You can turn labels on or off. You can choose between one global slider – or switch to having a slider for each system (the bottom icon does this)
Double click on any organ to isolate it from the rest of the body. It will stay visible while the rest of the body fades out to make it clearer to see it.
Unlike other web based body models that I have seen on, you don’t need to have Flash, Java, or other plugins installed. Google Body will run on any browser that supports the WebGL standard. At the moment this means that only developer or beta versions of FireFox and Chrome will run it right now, but expect to see WebGL will be supported by all browsers in 2011 for sure.
This will make teaching about the human body much better on an interactive whiteboard. Combine this with the desktop annotation or image capture and annotate to label organs and systems, or to just explore different organs in detail. Hopefully in the future there’ll be links to microscope or internal images, and maybe links to pages of information about each part. For now the tool is in beta, so there’s scope for more features to be added.
Thanks to Dai Barnes for the tip off on Twitter last night!
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/daibarnes/status/15818762632560640"]
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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