Unit Plan Elements
The Biological Bases of Behavior Unit Plan, published in 1995, is designed as a
seven-lesson unit plan. The plan comprises 56 pages and includes:
- Procedural timeline
- Content outlines
- 9 class activities
- 13 Critical thinking/Discussion questions
- 12 Discussion/essay questions
- Bibliography/print references
- Bibliography/other media
Unit Plan Authorship
The Biological Bases of Behavior Unit Plan was prepared by:
Blaine Adams
Elizabeth Berry
Gerald Blackstone
Betsy Fuqua
Lorrilee Geraci
Roger Hazzard
Joseph Lamas
Rhinehart Lintonen
Laura Maitland
Bates Mandel
Mike Riley
Pat Rowan
Ron Thorton
Robert Windemuth
Edited by: Laura Maitland
Copyright Information
The procedural timeline from the Development Unit Plan is reprinted here with the
permission of the Education Directorate of the APA. Further publication of any
material from the unit plan is not permitted without the express consent of the Education
Directorate.
How to Obtain the Unit Plan
To obtain a complete copy of the Development Unit Plan contact the APA at:
TOPSS
c/o Sherrill Jenkins
American Psychological Association
Education Directorate
750 First St., NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Unit Plan Procedural Timeline
This unit is designed to be used in whole by teachers of Advanced Placement and Honors
Psychology or in part by teachers of college preparatory psychology.
- Lesson 1 (Techniques to learn about the brain and neural function)
Show a videotape clip that relates change of behavior, i.e. loss of function, to damage
to specific area of the brain selected from: The Story of Phineas Gage (The Brain Series
Teaching Module 2), Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing (The Mind Series
Teaching Module 24) or excerpt from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
Use slides, transparencies, pictures and microscope slides to illustrate techniques
used to learn about brain and neural function (Content Outline Lesson 1).
Show a videotape clip illustrating techniques selected from: Overview of Brain
Organization (The Brain Module 1), Recording Integrated Brain Activity (The Mind Module
5), excerpt from The Behaving Brain (from Discovering Psychology) or magazine/journal
article -- such as from the September 1992 Scientific American.
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 2 (The neuron -- unit of structure and function of the nervous
system)
Show the first few minutes of The Behaving Brain from the Discovering Psychology series
dealing with the structure and function of the neuron.
Use transparencies or pictures of the neuron, synapse, a graph of the electrical
changes in axonal polarization during impulse propagation and the reflex arc to illustrate
the relationship of structure and fuction.
Have students do Module A: Neural Messages of the PsychSim computer lab series or do
Activity 2.1: Neurons and Impulse Conduction or do Activity 2.2: Conduction Of a Neuronal
Impulse or do Activity 2.3: Using Dominoes to Help Explain the Action Potential.
Do Activity 2.4: Demonstrating Simple Behavior: Patellar, Pupillary and Plantar
Reflexes.
Select from Question for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 3 (Organization of the nervous system)
Show pictures, slides, models or actual sections through the spinal cord and brain to
illustrate gray, white and reticular matter.
Use a mannequin, slides, pictures, other organisms or students to demonstrate axes and
aspects.
Show an excerpt of The Behaving Brain from the Discovering Psychology series dealing
with organization of the nervous system and the peripheral nervous system or project
transparencies or slides of the organization of the nervous system, peripheral nervous
system, effects of sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation.
Do Activity 3.1: The Autonomic Nervous System or do Activity 3.2 Physiological Effects
of Trying to Relax or have students take their pulses, then start a surprise quiz and have
them take their pulses again. Ask them to account for the difference in pulse rates.
Do Activity 3.3: Hands-On Demostration of the Triune Brain Model
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 4 (Localization of function of the human brain)
Use a bathing cap with the outline of the brain drawn on it, transparencies, pictures
and models to show anatomy of the brain.
Show excerpts from "The Enlightened Machine," the first program from The
Brain series or another of the programs that are available exploring anatomy and
physiology of the brain.
Have students examine the brain close-up whether using models, preserved whole brains
and half-brains sealed in plastic bags or doing a dissection.
Use Laboratory Activity 4.1: How is brain structure related to function? or have
students construct a brain model as suggested by C. Wilson and D.K. Marcus (1992).
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 5 (Lateralization of function of the human brain)
Show Language and Speech: Broca and Wernicke's Areas and Split Brain (Modules 3 and 4
from The Brain series).
Do PsychSim: Hemispheric Specialization or do Activity 5.1 Cerebral Lateralization.
Have students read J. Levy's (May 1985) "Right Brain, Left Brain: Fact or
Fiction," a Psychology Today article or an excerpt from it in Readings
in Psychology (1992).
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 6 (The endocrine system)
Show "The Feedback Cycle" and/or "Hormonal Control" (Programs 4 and
6 from the TV Ontario instructional television series Homeostasis).
Use transparencies, pictures, slides and models to show endocrine glands.
Have students read Doreen Kimura's "Sex Differences in the Brain" from the
September 1992 Scientific American or do Issue 1: Are Gender Differences Routed
in the Brain? in Brent Slife's Taking Sides (1994).
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
- Lesson 7 (Behavioral genetics)
Show Alzheimer's Disease (Teaching Module 16 from The Mind series)
Use transparencies, slides, pictures or video laser disk film clips to show key genetic
processes.
Do Activity 7.1: Individual Differences in Biological Bases of Behavior
Select from Questions for Discussion/Critical Thinking
