Model-Based Inquiry in Biology: Three-Dimensional Instructional Units for Grades

You shouldn’t have to scavenge for high-quality curriculum materials that both center around real-world phenomena and align with A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

And now you don’t have to—thanks to Model-Based Inquiry in Biology: Three-Dimensional Instructional Units for Grades 9–12. This book will help you engage your biology students in constructing, critiquing, revising, and testing models to explain how things happen in the world. The book is divided into two parts: Section 1 introduces model-based inquiry (MBI) and the ideas that frame it. Section 2 contains four complete MBI biology units. All come with the background, examples, and guidance you need to lead students to their final evidence-based explanations of the phenomena that anchor each unit. The units cover four areas: molecules and organisms, ecosystems, heredity, and biological evolution.

The curriculum builds strategically from unit to unit and integrates disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices. The authors—experts in model-based teaching and learning—tested each unit in actual classrooms. They make it clear that by using modeling to explain events, you can shift the emphasis of your biology lessons away from “we need to learn about this topic in order to do well in class” to “we need to figure out why or how something happens.” Model-Based Inquiry in Biology will help you to create meaningful learning experiences for your students as they strive to make sense of the world around them.