Biotechnology Online includes student worksheets for 34 activities. The PDF downloads on this this page lead to brief Teacher notes for each of these and for the six online interactives. The list indicates which activities depend on laboratory facilities or internet access. In some cases, printouts of relevant pages from Biotechnology Online or other sites could replace direct internet access.

What is biotechnology?

• Natural antibiotics (experiment)
• Ethical use of animals
• Extracting DNA in your kitchen (experiment)
• DNA line dancing
• When a gene code is altered - research (internet, library)
• DNA sequencing
• Plant tissue in the classroom (experiment)
• What or who would you clone?

Teacher notes for activities - What is biotechnology?

Applications for human use

• What will I choose?
• Have you the right to know?

Teacher notes for activities - Applications for human use

Environmental applications

• Some introduced pests in Australia - research (internet)
• The fox in Australia - solving the problem (internet or printouts)
• Should we interfere with nature? (internet and/or library)
• Saving the bilby - why bother?
• What should we save? (internet or printouts)
• Oil-eating bacteria (experiment)
• Should we clone the thylacine? (internet)
• Deciding on support for conservation programs

Teacher notes for activities - Environmental applications

Applications for food and agriculture

• Fat, cholesterol and your arteries (internet and reference on food composition)
• What people know about canola (internet)
• All about weeds (internet)
• How gene technology is carried out (internet)
• What people know about genetically modified canola (internet)
• Growing GM canola in Australia? (internet)
• Ask the experts (internet)
• Looking at labels (internet)
• Looking at media views - GM foods
• Organic farming (internet or printouts)
• Insects and cotton (internet)
• Butterflies and Bt (internet or printouts)
• How to engineer cotton (internet)
• People do not agree about genetic engineering of crops (internet or printouts)
• Looking at media views - GM crops
• Getting the right stamp (internet)

Teacher notes for activities - Applications for food and agriculture

Online interactives

• DNA profiling
• DNA zoom
• Dog cloning
• Gene probe
• Gene splicing
• Thylacine cloning

Teacher notes for activities - Online interactives