Boosting Engagement in Biology With Storylines

How did a community of creative educators come together to flip the script on AP Biology? As veteran science teacher Noel Pauller explains, it’s a long story—involving a pet hamster, YouTube videos, and inquiry strategies more commonly found in project-based learning.

Pauller had more than two decades of classroom experience when he agreed to teach Advanced Placement Biology for the first time in the 2021–22 school year. The rigorous course load came with an extra challenge: How to reengage students post-Covid?

“Some students were motivated,” Pauller said, “but others just put their heads down. Even though they had signed up for this academic challenge, they weren’t there for it.”

Pauller’s solution would not only transform his Maryland classroom, but also connect AP Bio teachers from across the country. His innovative approach involves using what is known as “storyline units.”

The Power of Story

As a much younger teacher, Pauller had learned about thematic instruction from a colleague. It was a shift from following the textbook in linear fashion and proved more engaging for his students. “Instead of learning about cells in isolation, we could teach a unit on a theme like disease that would get into Alzheimer’s and proteins, genetic disorders, cell division in cancer,” he said.

Fast-forward two decades to 2023, when Pauller attended a conference session about using storylines to teach science. Storylines organize the curriculum around a central story. The idea is for students to tackle investigations to advance the narrative—not because they are assigned tasks, but because they are curious to find answers. Researchers credit storylines with motivating students to make meaning. Although storyline units already existed for general biology courses, Pauller could not find any for AP. So he decided to create them.

Enter his family’s pet hamster.

Click-Worthy Content

As he set out to write storyline units for AP Bio, Pauller was determined to maintain the rigor and overall structure of the course, which spans eight units of content that students need to know for the end-of-course exam. He also wanted to increase the fun factor and make the course more accessible.

Pauller recalled how his own children had been captivated by a series of YouTube videos about backyard obstacle courses for squirrels, created by engineer Mark Rober. Pauller’s children persuaded him to build their own squirrel mazes, which turned into an extended, learner-driven inquiry experience at home.

For his curriculum design strategy, he borrowed from Rober’s storytelling style, starting with a short, entertaining video before offering an explanation. Pauller knew that videos with click appeal can spark inquiry-driven learning, launching students into the “backstory” of science content.

Inspiration for Pauller’s first video came from his family’s new pet hamster. Listening to his own kids ask question after question about the hamster’s behavior—Why was it hiding seeds? Why didn’t it drink much water?—he made a connection to the content of AP Biology Unit 1: The Chemistry of Life.

He created a trailer video called Survivor—American Southwest, starring desert rodents as protagonists who must escape threats from hungry predators and harsh, arid environments. How could the little creatures survive? To find out, students would need to know about water as the basis of life, the role of macromolecules like lipids and carbohydrates, and more. In other words, they would need to master the content of Unit 1.

Leading With Student Questions

Pauller’s storyline units follow a pattern. After watching a trailer, students are prompted to generate questions. They first work individually, then in small groups, eventually sharing their most interesting questions on a poster called a driving question board. This approach is similar to an inquiry strategy called the Question Formulation Technique, which promotes student-driven learning and also parallels the use of “need-to-know” questions to launch project-based learning.

But it’s a change from how he previously taught AP Bio, Pauller said. Although he used to have students submit questions at the start of a unit, “we didn’t use them to drive instruction or have students reference back or reflect on them throughout the unit,” he said. “It wasn’t intentional.”

In the new units, Pauller has been able to incorporate many of the labs and assessments he used previously, along with scaffolds like Cornell notes. He also created new labs, such as one that investigates the water-retaining qualities of different seeds, appropriate for Unit 1.

Pauller had two goals in mind when he decided to keep the overall course structure and College Board materials familiar to AP teachers: first, prepare students for the college placement exam; and second, enable other teachers to shift to storylines to engage a broader student population, without losing the rigor that’s a hallmark of AP.

The improvement in his students’ engagement and content mastery reassured him that he was on track with the first goal. To gauge progress toward the second, he needed collaborators.

Building a Community of Practice

Teaching Advanced Placement courses can be a solitary experience. “You tend to be the only one in your building,” Pauller said. “It’s isolating.”

He invited an AP Bio teacher at another high school in his district to give one storyline unit a try. The feedback was positive. “He wanted to do it again the next school year, with more units,” Pauller said.

When Pauller posted some of his new materials to a Facebook group, fellow biology teachers started asking for more. That led to his creating a website to share content and a presentation at the National Science Teachers Association annual conference.

Gradually, a community of practice has emerged, including monthly video conferences to share resources and troubleshoot challenges. A teacher from Illinois shared examples of the models she has her students create as alternative assessments, allowing them to demonstrate their understanding with text, visuals, and data. Pauller has already implemented the practice in his own curriculum, among other ideas from colleagues.

Pauller’s former department chair, Angela Tatum, recognizes the power of storylines. She said the approach makes units “more accessible to a wider range of students.”

“When they watch the trailer videos, they can all contribute questions. And they’ll learn everything they need in the unit for this video to make sense,” she said. “They see the purpose.” A former science researcher who shifted to education, Tatum said the collaborative learning that the approach promotes is also more like real science. “It’s so authentic to see this kind of inquiry—you notice a phenomenon, ask questions, test hypotheses,” she said. The success story of storyline units doesn’t end with the students.

“Teachers tell me this has reenergized them,” Pauller said.