Summary: This page includes information about how best to make use of the Sea Urchin Embryology website. The information on this site has been used by thousands of classrooms throughout the world.
In the labs and lessons you will find Information Links above the title, a Summary Box under the title and On Page Links just below the summary. Clicking on the banner will bring you back to the contents page.
See Path of Development for a visual overview of sea urchin development using the animations that have been generated for this web site.
The Core Lab is a lab using sea urchins to demonstrate fertilization and early development and takes about 1 week (days 3,4,5 only 15 min/day). This is the recommended lab if this is your first time doing the lab or time is limited.
The Primary Labs are a set of labs which extend the Core Lab experience over a longer time period (2+ weeks)and in greater depth.
Extended Research with suggestions for in depth research projects.
Since students may not all have the necessary knowledge, abilities or experiences to make full use of the CORE or PRIMARY labs we have included Support Lessons to help acquire these skills and reinforce concepts.
In Resources we give support material for the teacher to help design and refine their own adaptation of the prepared lessons.
In the writing of the lessons and labs we have used a consistent order of presentation which includes:
- Summary - a brief description of the purpose of the lesson/lab and the expected student learning.
- Timing - how much time will the lesson take, on the first day and subsequent days.
- Background - provides a perspective for approaching the lesson/lab.
- Materials - describes the necessary supplies and equipment that the teacher will need to prepare to do the lesson/lab.
- Procedure - describes the instructions for doing the lesson/lab.
- Math - gives detailed instructions for analysis and interpretation of data collected.
- Implications - gives guided questions to help students analyze and think about the lesson/lab completed. In this section we also give questions that reinforce students understanding of essential concepts in biology that are illustrated by the lesson/lab.
- Evaluation - gives suggestions for assessment.
Supplemental Material - takes you to a page of links to the masters for classroom presentations and/or written student assignments. (S) Spanish now too!
Glossary - takes you to a guide to terms used in the texts. Some terms will link to further resources.
References - takes you to a page of books, articles and links to other resources.
Skills - takes you to a page describing the necessary prior knowledge, experiences, and/or abilities useful for each lesson/lab.
Printouts - takes you to lesson plans suitable for printing.
Trouble - some helpful suggestions for when things go wrong. Mostly on the lab pages.
Feel free to download or print any of the Media (including lesson plans, graphics and animations) for use in your classroom