Whodunnit?

During student teaching, I had the opportunity to visit the AP Biology class for a day. The day that I visited, the students had a professor visiting from Wilkes University to help with their lab. Students were performing a lab that required them to use electrophoresis to solve a make believe murder mystery. Having the aspect of the crime involved made the students much more engaged and they seemed to grasp the concepts even more. Even I found myself invested in the story line (it was the ex-boyfriend's DNA under the victim's nails, in case you were curious). The visit inspired me to try and find more ways to engage my students in the topics that we're learning about.