Chad is musing about teaching a class based on classical experiments in physics:
The idea would be to have students pick one of the classic experiments in science from, say, before WWII, track down the original papers, and read them to work out how things were done (tracing back other references as needed). Then they would look into how the experiment could be updated using more modern technology, and what the pros and cons of the different versions are. Ideally, they would do some version of the experiment themselves, and write up the results as well.
However….
I have very little idea what would count as classic experiments in chemistry or biology, or how you would go about replicating them.
So, let’s help Chad with biology experiments – classical experiments that students can do (so nothing requiring experimentation on vertebrates, for instance). What would those be? Think of different areas of biology: evolution, ecology, behavior, physiology, microbiology, botany….