I love this song. “There are seven things it needs to survive”:

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Inspired by the Stanford biologists, I’m looking for popular songs to butcher into biological themes. The process of taking one of your favourite songs and twisting it into a factually-sound academic re-write can be a great way to consolidate key concepts, especially for the musically intelligent. It takes more than just recall of the facts – you have to force yourself to understand the topic in order to write a decent song. To make the song make sense, you need a good grasp of the content and you must use the key terms correctly.

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Ideas so far –

• An IB Biology version of “Apoptize” (One Republic’s ‘Apologize‘) (completed – click here)
• “One Gene, One Protein“, after “No Woman, No Cry“
• “Don’t Divide Even“, after The Script’s “Break Even” (completed – click here)
• “I Will Divide,” after Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (have a go – click here)
• “ACE, ACE Inhibitors“, based on Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby“
• Endangered Species song for  “Numb/Encore” by LP and Jay-Z
• “Hormones“, after Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours“
• “Good Riddance (to excess end products)“, based on Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your life)” (completed – click here)

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For some more reading on how making use of  Musical Intelligence can aid in learning across the curriculum:

• “The Effect of Music on Second Language Vocab Acquisition” from ESL Through Music
• “Promoting Literacy Through Music” from Songs for Teaching (Resources here: Science page)
• “Singing In Science: Writing and Recording Student Lyrics to Express Learning” from the University of California. Here’s Tomcfad demonstrating this technique with an elementary earth science class:

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My big question: Has there been any research on the effectiveness of different styles of music in relation to age group, cultural background or musical preference?

Many of the bought-resources seem to based on country songs or old songs – how well does that translate to a modern teen audience in an international or urban setting?

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If you’ve got any cool ideas (the more complex, the better), or any comments on the use of music as a learning tool,  please post them below!

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Headphones image from: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/date/2008/page/5/