Reaching 4850 feet underground, the Sanford Underground Research Facility (Sanford Lab) supports cutting-edge research in particle and nuclear physics, as well as other disciplines, including the life sciences. As part of Sanford Lab's education and outreach effort, they make available a variety of offerings for K-12 teachers, including fieldtrips to Sanford Lab, classroom presentations, and teacher professional development. These typically serve the needs of teachers in South Dakota, but the K-12 education team also make available inquiry-based curriculum modules that can be used in middle school and high school science classrooms everywhere. Although this review focuses on their life science modules, modules that address chemistry, geology, and physics concepts also exist.

Biology researchers have found that an advantage …