Our group has been developing new tools for the high school biology teacher. We are using flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and image analysis to create data sets that will enhance the basic tools available to high school teachers. Examples are series of 3D reconstructions of plants and microorganisms and animals as well as many images and data sets of blood cells, tissue culture cells and other tissue.

In addition, we propose to create teaching sets that allow students to understand the technology that produced the material - so we have created tutorials on flow cytometry and microscopy to assist students. They can see the results and also evaluate the technology that created the data sets.

The project is being developed for CD-ROM and web use. Large data sets such as 3D reconstructions or rotations, or movies cannot easily be downloaded from the web, so they are being placed onto interactive CDs. As the projects develop we will expand the areas of study, to cover the entire high school biology curriculum. An example of the material can be seen on http://biorante.cyto.purdue.edu/science