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I am having the hardest time presenting the Calvin Cycle to my 10th grade biology students in an interesting way they can grasp. Any fun ideas?

Check out this lesson using manipulatives: http://jmbe.asm.org/index.php/jmbe/article/view/245/html

Have you tried this? I have a Lego kit for chemical reactions however even I am confused by it. Thank you

No. I haven't tried it yet. I plan on trying it out next trimester. We are already past this in my current classes.

Everything neat about the Calvin cycle is that sugar is made in the absence of light at this stage. I had students make two foldables: one for the Light Reaction and one for the Dark reaction. It could be fun to eat sweets in the room with the lights turned down very low and have a movie theater or video theater calling the event the Calvin theater. Send invites and make up a menu. Make certain the foldables are turned in and details about how carbon dioxide makes sugar in six turns etc. are in the foldable. Display Calvin and Hobbes cartoons to reinforce the "Calvin" part.

That sound fun do you have any examples of student work

I would have to scan these in at home this weekend.

Lab-aids has a fantastic inquiry activity it's a basic introduction, it's a card set. If you have their program there is on online version. Unfortunately their website is very poor for ordering but I would recommend it to all!

One way to show a plant going through the Calvin cycle is to measure the pH change of water when an aquatic plant is put in it. You don’t need fancy equipment, you would just need bromythymol blue, water, and elodia, which can be found at any pet store or any freshwater lake. When CO2 is dissolved in water, it forms carbonic acid. Carbonic acid raises the acidity of the water. The indicator bromythymol blue shows changes in pH- yellow when acidic and another color when basic. The first step is to raise the CO2 concentration of the water by either having the kids blow into a straw into the water or by adding baking soda to the water. This lowers the pH, which should make the solution turn yellow-ish. After that, you can put the plant inside and as the plant is conducting the Calvin cycle, it uses the CO2, which lowers the amount of carbonic acid. Since the indicator is in there it will show pH change by reverting back to the blue color. You can use this to also link cellular respiration and photosynthesis. This is fun for the kids because they love to do lab work rather than bookwork. They can even go outside and collect their own plants to use in this experiment; just make sure the plants they choose can photosynthesize under water.

In the spirit of the NGSS, have students create a model of the Calvin Cycle. Scientists and engineers are forever making models to help explain how things might work.