The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of vocabulary acquisition in high school biology using modeling clay. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design was used with modeling clay in contrast to sentence writing. The 96 student participants, comprising five classrooms, were all from Georgia public high schools in the southwest region of the state. The schools, from lower socio-economic status, were all Title I schools. The treatment activity consisted of students creating depictions of the definitions of words in physical forms with modeling clay. The control group wrote sentences demonstrating an understanding of the word. The posttest was administered after the twenty cell unit words and twenty genetics unit words were completed by all students. The retention test was completed the week following the posttest. Likert-style student surveys were completed at the same time as the retention test. The teacher interviews were conducted after each unit, guided by ten questions related to classroom layout, planning lessons, management of students during the study, and opinions and impressions regarding the use of clay in pedagogy. The use of clay as a kinesthetic tool was determined to be effective, and in some cases better, than traditional methods of vocabulary acquisition. The use of clay allowed students to approximate experiences with microscopic entities in alignment with multisensory practices like kinesthetic intelligence and DCT theories. Per the quantitative data from participating teachers and assessment results, males performed better with the use of clay. The study also validated the findings of Marzano (2010) who stated that vocabulary should be addressed as a separate subject. This study serves to validate other studies regarding the use of kinesthetic or tactile approaches to learning education and is a springboard to future studies employing unconventional learning methods.