Abstract
Today's biology curriculum at levels ISCED 2 and 3 consists of many topics like genetics, evolution, and ecology that are on the one hand very important and help students to understand complex processes that shape the environment around them, but on the other hand, are also difficult to comprehend. The main problem with these topics is that processes within their scope occur on multiple levels of biological organization that also interact among themselves in diverse ways.
The biology curriculum and textbooks introduce levels of organization (molecules, cells, tissues, organisms, populations, etc.) and describe the characteristics and functions of entities at each level (like cells and their organelles). Unfortunately, in the case of the Czech Republic and other European countries, they do not sufficiently promote the connections among the levels of biological organization and concepts and processes on, and across, the levels, and therefore, they lack coherence in the presented information.
This lack of coherence then easily results in misunderstandings by students of scientific concepts (like respiration or heredity). To cope with these problems, there are currently many strategies that help to promote students' coherent understanding of biological phenomena.
One of them is the Yo-Yo Strategy, that helps students to define, connect and navigate among the levels of biological organization. In the paper, we discuss how to start using this teaching and learning method successfully in class in order to influence positively students' understanding of even very abstract biological topics.