Numerous components work together, forming the community you live in and creating natural elements that to which your students are already accustomed. These include plant and animal habitats, the water supply, irrigation techniques and natural environmental conditions. Take a short field trip to a natural area and let your students collect samples of some of your indigenous plant life, giving them a chance to study and understand their own environment. Locate water sources entering your community, and help your students study how these waterways affect their community's environment.
Dissection remains an effective method for studying animal life in biology. Dissection subjects include fetal pigs, cats, earthworms, frogs and others depending on your access. Focus your dissection on the internal systems of animals, demonstrating how each system is connected and how each system functions as part of the overall internal system. Provide a foundation for your dissection class by explaining each of these systems to your students before they ever pick up their scalpels. Use your dissections as an opportunity to teach them laboratory safety and proper scientific techniques.
Include the scientific method as part of everything you do, until the method is "second nature" to your students. Structure your lectures by beginning every class with a hypothesis, sometimes true and other times false. Use your class discussion in place of the standard research portion of the method, prompting students to locate information from the book to support or deny your hypothesis. If your hypothesis requires an experiment, perform it as a class project or use laboratory time and have your students suggest their own theories on the topic.
Quizzes are part of any science class, letting you know how your students are advancing and accepting the material. Alter your quiz technique and give your quizzes a new purpose by asking questions that your students can answer through experimentation, and provide the necessary in-class materials for them to use to experiment. For instance, if your quiz refers to cell construction, provide microscopes and samples for your students to view. Let them load their microscopes, prepare their samples and use their experiment to examine cells and obtain the answers to your quiz questions. These types of quizzes teach your students how to come up with answers on their own.