At first glance it didn’t look like students were in biology, but rather jewelry because of the bright red and yellow beads when in fact they were doing a lab.

On February 4, AP Biology students in Mrs.Beth Ericsson’s class conducted an interactive mitosis and meiosis lab. Students had to fill out a pre-lab sheet on Schoology defining terms they will use in the lab so they would have a stronger understanding of the topic.

In this lab they used bead models to illustrate the two kinds of cell division and learn new material in a fun and interactive way.

Ethan Hart, Class of 2020, said ”This lab was a fun way to visualize and distinguish differences between two different kinds of cell division. Labs like these allow us to be creative and to better understand the material.”

Students in the class felt the same way, enjoying the hands-on approach to learning the material, which gave them more confidence in their understanding in the process of both mitosis and meiosis. Amanda Lindsey, Class of 2020 said, “This lab was a fun interactive way to learn.”

AP Biology often does these types of experiments in class to get students more involved in learning the material and increase class participation. They do labs using a variety of materials from foods and chemicals to modeling tools.

These labs have been shown to prepare the students for the unit tests and ultimately create a fun study session for the big AP test in May.