One of the labs that I've come to enjoy while we are studying the cell cycle in AP Biology is the Onion Mitosis lab. I love this version of the lab because it requires very little prep time on my part, and within a week, my students have some real data to analyze. The lab I use with my students was modified from Lee Ferguson and can be found on her website, The Biology Space, here under the cell structure and function resources.
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| It's hard to see, but we usually hold the onions up in the beakers by rubber banding them around a straw that sticks lower than the ends of the onions. That way the root bases aren't pushed against the bottom of the beaker. |
I really only modified the materials that I provide the students to experiment with and how the results will be presented--since my students do a mini poster presentation of their results. The modified lab document can be found here.
