Biological generalizations: A method for integrating the subject matter to be taught in an advanced high school biology course

Abstract

Scope of Study: Very few, if any, high school biology textbooks have been written in such a manner that the material is well integrated. Most of the textbooks are sectioned into plants, animals, heredity, human biology, and other topics. Thus, the student comes away from such a course with very little insight as to the connections and commonness in almost identical phenomena found in all living organisms. This paper was prepared in order to show how the subject matter taught in an advanced high school biology course can be integrated. The chapter titles are broad biological generalizations. Subject matter for each chapter, which can be connected with each generalization, was collected from articles found in the more recent natural science publications. The different topics to be included were, of course, selected before the literature was examined. The material included under and one particular generalization may be taken from all the major, and special, field of the natural sciences. In many chapters this is the case.

Conclusions: This paper is not all inclusive. It was found that the material which could be included under each of the generalizations was overwhelming. Therefore, the material which appears in each chapter is that which could be used in a textbook written on the same plan as this paper. Much of the subject matter included could also be used to help bring the high school biology teacher up to date on the more recent developments in the field. Many old beliefs can now be discarded and new knowledge can replace them.