Ask if any of the students can give a general definition of biology.

Once you’ve listened to their answers help them out by giving them a good definition such as: 

• Biology is the science of living things:  The life sciences collectively, including botany, anatomy, physiology and zoology.

Some questions to get them thinking:

• So what exactly does a biologist do?
• What kind of jobs involve biology?

If you have any biology related equipment or instruments, now is a good time to show them. Things like microscopes and slides are perfect.

 

Simple microscope activity:

If you do have microscopes available then let the students experiment with them. Show them the basics first and then give them some interesting biology samples to look at under the microscope. Things like hair strands, food, plants and clothing fibers are always interesting.

Bring the students back and talk about what they saw under the microscope. Is what they saw different from what they see with the naked eye? Does this affect what they think about these objects?

Microscopes have many uses in biology, they can be used to investigate cells as well as bacteria growth, plant decay and much more.

 

Bacteria activity:

Another easy activity you can try is to help the children make an agar plate to grow bacteria. For more detailed information on this fun activity check out our breeding bacteria experiment.

 

Other areas of biology:

Other important areas of biology that can be mentioned in your introduction to biology include anatomy, physiology, neurology and evolution. Ask plenty of open ended questions to help stimulate discussion while being prepared to step in and offer some useful points when their ideas start running dry.

• What do muscles in the human body do?
• Why do some people have black hair and others blonde?
• How does your brain work?
• Why do giraffes have long necks?

Biology is a very wide area of science covering a number of different topics, While this biology introduction only covers only a few of them, it should give kids a taste of what biology is all about and hopefully stimulate an interest in what is a fascinating subject.