How I Teach
Phenomena-Based Storylines and Sparking Curiosity
Noel Paulleris a biology teacher currently teaching for Anne Arundel County Public Schools with over 20 years of teaching experience in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maryland. He is a National Board Certified teacher, YouTube educator, and creator of the Lab Hamster Storylines for AP Biology.
After turning down opportunities to teach the course earlier in my career, I first started teaching AP Biology in 2021. I naively expected all of my students to be highly motivated and eager to learn about all things biology. While I certainly had many students who fit this description, I was shocked at the number who were physically present in class but largely disinterested and disengaged.
So after two years of mixed results, I set out to transform the way I taught biology. My goal was to ensure that my AP Biology classes would move away from students who felt that the main motivation for learning was an impending test, and towards students who embraced a culture of being curious and searching for answers to questions about the natural world.
In AP Biology, I begin each unit with a brief video trailer carefully selected to spark student curiosity. For example, we begin Unit 1 by watching a video starring small desert rodents including rock pocket mice and kangaroo rats. These animals face the very real dangers of the harsh, arid desert while also needing to avoid predators such as hawks and rattlesnakes. Even though the video is only a few minutes long, students are able to generate a wide variety of questions about the behavior and adaptations of these amazing animals.
Students then work collaboratively to create a “Driving Question Board” (DQB), a visual summary of the class’s questions about topics like camouflage, burrowing, and diet. We return to the DQB throughout the unit as students explore topics from the course curriculum including natural selection, statistical analysis, graphing, properties of water, and the molecules critical to life.
Inquiry and Collaborative Meaning-Making
Another key aspect of the storyline approach is student participation in scientific inquiry and the creation of models to explain phenomena.
After generating the DQB, students are tasked with creating an initial visual model to explain the adaptations of desert rodents that allow these animals to survive and thrive in the challenging environment in which they live. These models are used by both the teacher and student to determine the growth of understanding that takes place throughout the unit’s sequence of lessons.
Each unit typically has a central lab investigation that helps students build greater understanding of the phenomena and core scientific concepts. The Unit 1 lab has students investigate the behavior of rodents collecting and storing seeds underground in their burrows.
The seeds act like sponges that absorb water directly out of the air in the more humid conditions of the burrows. Students learn that the rodents are able to boost the water content of their food while simultaneously learning about properties of water and macromolecules like proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids.
Upon completing the unit, students work in collaborative groups to create a final model that synthesizes answers to their initial questions about the phenomena.
I believe that we can transform science education by:
- Prioritizing phenomena-driven frameworks that emphasize engaging real-world context over rote, linear textbook coverage of content.
- Implementing student-centered inquiry tools like Driving Question Boards to give students increased ownership of their learning process.
- Fostering collaborative networks among educators to share open-source curricula and reduce teacher isolation.
In 2025, I founded an online professional learning community for teachers from around the country who are helping transform AP Biology one classroom at a time. With the support of an NEA Foundation grant, I was joined by two members of the PLC at the 2026 NSTA Conference in Anaheim, California, where we presented two of the storyline units.