A partnership of three Nebraska institutions--the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the University of Nebraska at Kearney and Nebraska Wesleyan University--are developing and implementing bioinformatics-focused laboratory exercises across the life sciences curriculum. The project builds on previous NSF-funded work to add bioinformatics content to lecture courses. The lecture material, the student laboratory modules and the tools developed to help students use bioinformatics databases are all freely available at a website maintained and updated by the PIs (http://ccli.ist.unomaha.edu). The intellectual merit of this project resides in its potential to enable students at all levels to understand the potential of bioinformatics as a discipline and in the interesting subject matter of the problems posed and modules produced. These latter include such subjects as analysis of Neanderthal gene sequences and using protein analysis to unravel the history of life on earth. Broader impacts lie in the synergism created by adding inquiry-based laboratories to previously developed lecture content in order to provide a foundation of bioinformatics education at all levels in the life sciences and a dissemination plan that includes partnering with publishers to include versions of the modules as supplementary materials in their textbooks.