Interactive Replace Science lessons for middle school.

Year 7 are learning how scientists identify organisms with dichotomous keys, ahead of pond dipping next month. The teacher has turned the department's pond key into a PowerPoint slideshow: each slide asks one question, such as "Does it have six legs?" or "Does it have a shell?", and the Yes and No buttons are hyperlinks to the next question, ending on a slide that names the animal. Pairs take ten numbered photographs, including a water boatman, a pond skater, a freshwater shrimp, a water louse, a ramshorn snail and a caddisfly larva, and run each one through the key, writing the name and the route of questions in their books. The teacher checks answers with the class at the end and asks two pairs to explain where the key could mislead them, such as a caddisfly larva hidden inside its case.

Tools: PowerPoint Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 8 have seen a leaf cross-section and now need to connect each structure to its job. The teacher shares one Microsoft Whiteboard board per pair through school accounts, holding nine feature cards, such as waxy cuticle, palisade cells packed with chloroplasts, air spaces in the spongy layer, stomata and guard cells, and nine function cards, such as reducing water loss, absorbing as much light as possible and letting carbon dioxide reach the cells. Pairs drag each feature onto its function and then move the matched pair to the right place on a cross-section diagram in the middle of the board. The teacher circulates and asks any pair with a doubtful match to explain it, and students finish by writing their three strongest pairs in their books as feature, function and how it helps photosynthesis.

Tools: Microsoft Whiteboard Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 8 finish their cells topic with a Microsoft Forms quiz of eighteen multiple-choice questions: fifteen on organelle functions, such as which structure controls the cell's activities and where aerobic respiration takes place, and three that show a diagram and ask whether it is a plant, animal or bacterial cell. Every student sees the same questions in the same order, and the teacher switches off the setting that shows scores and correct answers on submission. The quiz takes about twenty minutes, and students spend the rest of the lesson writing an extended answer in their books comparing plant and animal cells. The teacher reads the results after the lesson and opens the next one by returning scores and re-teaching the two most-missed questions.

Tools: Microsoft Forms Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 8 have looked at onion and cheek cells under the microscope and now match what they saw to the structures they have learned. Each student gets their own copy of a four-slide PowerPoint: an animal cell diagram, a plant cell diagram, a light micrograph of onion epidermis and a palisade cell, each with a bank of label boxes and arrows at the side. Students drag each label into place and delete any that do not belong, which is the real test: the animal cell has no cell wall, chloroplasts or permanent vacuole, and the onion epidermis cell has no chloroplasts. They hand the file in through the class's usual assignment route, and the teacher marks it as the printed labelling sheets were marked, showing the model answers at the start of the next lesson.

Tools: PowerPoint Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 9 finish their unit on respiration with a self-quiz before the end-of-topic test. Each student opens the notes they have kept in Google Docs through the unit, checks there are no names or personal details in them, and pastes them into Gemini on their school account with the teacher's prompt: write ten short-answer questions using only these notes, and do not give the answers. Students close the notes and type their answers into a new Google Doc, covering the word equation for aerobic respiration, where anaerobic respiration happens in muscles, why it leaves an oxygen debt, and what yeast produces in fermentation. They then reopen their notes, highlight each correct answer in green and list the gaps to revise tonight. The teacher circulates, reads a sample of the generated questions to check they stay inside the unit, and redirects any student whose questions have strayed.

Tools: Gemini for Education, Google Docs Nine ideas for your own version in Generate