I found myself, several times during my student teaching, literally telling my students how amazing or cool a certain topic we were learning about is.  Every day I try to convey my enthusiasm for the world of biology, be it by telling a story or giving an interesting example or demonstration. The "Human Biology Biographies" are another way I interwove not only my own interest of biology, but that of key figures in human biology, into the weekly lives of my students.  Every Friday two students were assigned to report and make a poster on an assigned individual who contributed to our knowledge of human biology.  By doing this, my students learned that there is a face---many different faces---to what we are studying, and that we would not know what we know today about the human body had it not been for these people.  These "Bio Bios," as I often called them, were a subtle way to help students place what we were studying into a historical realm. 

One area of this standard in which I have been continually challenged is that of understanding all the concepts and content of the various chapters on human anatomy and physiology.  I spent a considerable part of my pre-planning simply refreshing my memory on the material so that I could confidently teach my students, as well as answer their questions.  Only then could I successfully "integrate the facts, terminology, and concepts of [anatomy and physiology] to form a cohesive whole."  I also spent much time researching questions I had, and that I knew the students would have.  For example, I knew students would have questions about why our muscles cramp, why we get hiccups, etc, when we were studying the muscular anatomy, so I made it a point to research these questions and, even if the students did not bring them up in class, I was able to pose them as questions for them to answer, thus challenging their inquiry skills as focused on the material at hand. 

Simply put, I am constantly finding new reasons that biology is awesome.  I continually bring these tidbits of "awesomeness" to my students'¦ attention, and while this may show my engagement with the subject matter, I do need to make sure that I (most of the time) place them in the context of what we have learned or are learning in order to make the tidbits that much more valuable.  As a sort of compromise to this fact, and in my attempt to find a way to keep the attention of my students on the day before spring break, I designed a "Plants and Humans" nature walk around the school grounds that allowed us to examine some plants that humans can use for medicinal purposes. Several students listed this mini field-trip as one of their favorite parts of my class in my final evaluation.