Can microalgae improve honeybee health?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Vincent Ricigliano, a molecular biologist at the US Department of Agriculture’s Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Research Laboratory. He is improving honeybee health by developing nutritious pollen substitutes made from microalgae.

• This resource also contains an interview with Vincent and offers an insight into careers in molecular biology. If your students have questions for Vincent, they can send them to him online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Vincent will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Vincent’s research and challenges them to plant a pollinator garden.

• An animation about Vincent’s work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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