Virginia Beach teacher creates coloring book for biology review

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (WAVY) – What do biology mean SOLs, and color have something in common? Well, during the pandemic, a Virginia Beach teacher created a common thread and uniquely helped her students prepare for testing.

Breanna Calkins is a biology teacher at Green Run College. For the past school year, she taught students both in her classroom and virtually. She wanted to find a fun way to prepare students for the SOLs.

“The idea actually came to me at the end of the first semester when my first semester kids were preparing to take their SOLs and as always they were stressed, so I thought back and thinking about how I had painting sessions in the past to the kids, and it has always eased their anxiety, and I try to incorporate art into organic as best I can. You used to love it. They ate it up and really started thinking about it like, you know, ‘How can I color code this so I can remember it?’ And the idea struck me like lightning that in this virtual world we are in right now, I could do something for my children that could not only help alleviate their anxiety, but also kill two birds with one stone hit stone and they could check at the same time, ”said Calkins.

So Mrs. Calkins has “Color me, organic!“It’s a coloring book for biology students.

“I worked hard on it for four months, nights and weekends, trying to come up with design ideas and how I can explain them and integrate visual aspects of things.”

According to biology student Brooke Trice, that work has paid off.

“The color scheme makes you focus on it, so it’s like it is ingrained in your memory,” Brooke said.

Brooke took the SOLs after using the coloring book and passed! Mrs. Calkins says the book is taking students on a review trip.

“It … starts small and grows big, and so the students go through the properties of water and why these properties are so important for life on our planet, because without water we would not be here. There’s a whole section on anatomy because, let’s face it, people want to know what’s going on in their body. It’s quite extensive and I will definitely add the inheritance and biotechnology aspect as this is covered in my classroom for both the SOL and IB exams. I tried to make it contain content for AP exams, so that it would be as diverse and achieve as many goals as possible, so that it would be worth the money the students were spending on buying the book. ”

Brooke’s mother, Jennifer Trice, teaches with Mrs. Calkins and says the efforts behind this book are beyond anything she could have imagined for her child.

“That Bree got the idea of ​​’When I dye, I relax. When I dye, I concentrate. When I dye I’m right here ‘and to combine that with a biology review, I say,’ You’re a genius and I love you! ‘”

Mrs. Calkins published the coloring book on Amazon in May.

“It’s going pretty well. There was particularly great interest in the initial publication. It actually hit number one on the AP review charts on the first weekend and I was overwhelmed, like, oh my god! ”Said Calkins.

She is grateful that this book can reach children not just in Virginia Beach but around the world.

“I want to help as many children as possible and luckily Amazon allows me to reach several marketplaces. So I can make it available in the UK, Spain, Australia, anywhere the IB curriculum goes, anywhere a student needs a review resource because you know wherever you are, biology is biology. It is the same. It transcends cultures and languages. My goal is just to help as many children as possible because I really believe in the value of incorporating that color aspect and making that connection in your brain so that a student will sit down once to take each test, they will remember hopefully what they did in this coloring book, and the content just comes out of it. “

It is important to note that the coloring book is not required for students. It was created solely to help you if you are interested in a unique review. Calkins says she is working on a second biology coloring book and she plans to make a chemistry coloring book. If you are interested in reading the original review book on Amazon, Click here.