Boy oh, boy! Cellular biology and immunology have come a long way since I was in college!

The last time I took a college course in cellular biology or immunology it was about 1994.  Since I am a science teacher, my professional journal-reading tends to concentrate on methodology research in science education, for example: Science Scope, Teachers College Record, or the Journal of Science Education and Technology.

Because of that, I live for "current events" projects or assignments in my classes.  It gives me and my students an opportunity to dive into what fascinates us about science at the cutting edge.  One of my tools for current events is my TED-talk-Tuesdays! I choose a few TED talks from TED.com and show them to my classes after previewing them (always preview your TED talks! you want to be prepared for jokes by the presenter or images--diagrams of human anatomy and such--that the kids may not be expecting).

My mind was blown today, though! The talk we watched today was by David Bolinsky, medical director of BioVisions biological animations studio at Harvard University.  It is amazing to me how much MORE we know now about the molecular mechanisms inside the cell than we did when I was in college!  I feel like I need to go back to school just to catch up!

After watching the talk, I searched around the internet for the full version of the amazing 3-dimensional animated, narrated and annotated video and found it here:

The Inner Life of a Cell - Harvard University

More science games & videos on Cell Structures at NeoK12.com  

I found it helpful to also view the same process in an animation format that was less visually complicated.  For a traditional flash animation of the same process (shown in 2D) with labels and explanations, click this link: http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/flash/extravasation.swf

Boy oh, boy! Cellular biology and immunology have come a long way since I was in college!