Click and Learn Home Grown Fun | Homemade Fossils – MADE EASY! It’s easy to “mix up some mesozoic” at home or at school! Making homemade fossils is fun and addictive. We’ve got a simple recipe for creating rock-like relics sure to bring out the Paleontologist in everyone! Below you’ll find our cute video with basic instructions plus a list of materials and extra tips for success. Also lower down the page get details on how to prepare for a group event and suggestions for teaching about fossils in an exciting way! Materials Needed PLASTER OF PARIS – One 4.5 lb. box per 125 students – approximately $5.00.LITTLE PLASTIC CREATURES OR OBJECTS – These objects should be small enough to fit in the middle of the cup. Helpful Tips and Tricks The flattened clay ball should take up less than half the cup.Flatten the clay well before making the impression.Place the object upside down in the clay.DO NOT bury the object. Planning Guidance for Large Groups of Students BEFORE THE EVENT – Prepare Materials. e the event. Make Mud for the Bottom of the Lake. Make Fossils!
BioInteractive Search Results Series Where and when did humans arise? What distinguishes us from other species? Did our distant ancestors look and behave like us? How has the amazing diversity of plants and animals evolved? What can fossils, butterflies, and stickleback fish tell us about the deep common ancestry of all living forms? Leading evolution educator Ken Miller discusses the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution. Four talks focus on sex determination—the molecular and genetic mechanisms that determine whether an organism will be male, female or a hermaphrodite. This series of short films has been crafted to engage students with memorable examples of the evolutionary process in action. Has Earth changed over deep time? The richness and diversity of life raises two of the most profound questions in biology: How do new species form? The most profound discoveries in science have cracked longstanding mysteries and altered how we think about life on our planet.
Coffee Ground Fossils Ages school-age Create your own fossils to display by using old coffee grounds. These work well as visual aids for science projects and makes a fun Earth Day craft for kids. What you'll need 1 cup of used coffee grounds 1/2 cup of cold coffee 1 cup of flour 1/2 cup of salt Wax paper Mixing bowl Some small objects to make impressions in the dough (Shaped cookie cutters work well.) Helpful Tip: To reduce the drying time, bake the fosils for a short period of time to get the "dough" to harden. How to make it Stir together the coffee grounds, cold coffee, flour, and salt until well mixed. BioInteractive Search Results Lectures How reasoning and evidence are used to understand human evolution. Genetic evidence shows that humans evolved in Africa and continue to evolve. Stone tools are well-preserved evidence of past human activity. The hominid fossil record of the past six million years gives us surprising insights into the path of human evolution. How humans perceive bitter taste, and the evolution of taste perception. How Darwin came to publish The Origin of Species, and examples of how quickly evolution can change a population. Comparing the artificial selection of dogs and corn with the natural selection of the stickleback fish. The genetic mechanisms by which evolution occurs, and an overview of the evidence for evolutionary theory. How and why butterflies and fruit flies got their spots, and the fossil record for human evolution. A discussion on reconciling religion and science with students, the lecturers, and guest speakers. Microbes have been the dominant life form throughout Earth's history. Dr. Dr.
Understanding Evolution The bacteria that changed the world - May, 2017 The make-up of Earth's atmosphere, once the domain of Earth science textbooks, has become an increasingly "hot" news topic in recent decades, as we struggle to curb global warming by limiting the carbon dioxide that human activity produces. While the changes that humanity has wrought on the planet are dramatic, this isn’t the first time that one species has changed Earth’s atmosphere. Three billion years ago, there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere at all. Life was anaerobic, meaning that it did not need oxygen to live and grow. That all changed due to the evolution of Cyanobacteria, a group of single-celled, blue-green bacteria. Read the rest of the story here | See the Evo in the News archive
100 Years of Breed “Improvement” | Science of Dogs For the sake of honest disclosure, I will admit to owning “purebreds” (the ‘pureness’ of purebreeds is a discussion for another time) but I also have mutts. All the dogs I’ve had since childhood had a few things in common, they were friendly, prey driven, ball-crazy, intense, motivated, athletic (crazy dogs are easier to train) and none had intentionally bred defects. I would never buy/adopt a dog whose breed characteristics exacted a health burden.(Asher 2009). That just incentivizes people to breed more of these intentionally unhealthy animals. The dogs on the left are from the 1915 book, ‘Breeds of All Nations‘ by W.E. It seems incredible that at one time the Bull Terrier was a handsome, athletic dog. The Basset Hound has gotten lower, has suffered changes to its rear leg structure, has excessive skin, vertebra problems, droopy eyes prone to entropion and ectropion and excessively large ears. A shorter face means a host of problems. Once a noble working dog, the modern St. Like this:
Cut and Run Legions of athletes, sports gurus, and scientists have tried to figure out why Kenyans dominate long-distance running. In this short, we stumble across a surprising, and sort of terrifying, explanation. At the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City, Kipchoge Keino overcame a gall bladder infection to win gold in the 1500 meter race. David Epstein and John Manners help Greg untangle a web of potential factors - from something in the cornmeal to simple economics. Short Films “Film is a powerful way to tell stories. … The right story, told well, can be engaging, informative, and memorable.” —Sean B. Carroll HHMI’s series of short films for the classroom brings fascinating stories of science and scientists to students and teachers. The films aim to bring important scientific advances to life with concrete examples of how science works, how evidence is weighed and tested, and how conclusions are reached. These compelling stories, in fields ranging from evolutionary biology and genetics to earth science, feature leading scientists and stunning locations around the world. Importantly, each film is accompanied by a collection of supporting materials, including film guides, quizzes, hands-on activities, and lesson plans, that teachers use to increase the impact of the films in their instruction. The films and accompanying resources are available for download at BioInteractive.org.
Origins: Series Overview Origins: Back to the Beginning September 29, 2004 NEIL deGRASSE TYSON (Astrophysicist): A hellish, fiery wasteland, a molten planet hostile to life, yet somehow, amazingly, this is where we got our start. How? How did the universe, our planet, how did we ourselves come to be? Right now, we're all eavesdropping on the birth pangs of the cosmos. DAVID SPERGEL (Princeton University): ...how big it is, how old it is, what's it made of, and what were the processes that made galaxies, that made us. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: So a furious race is on to solve the ultimate mystery. ANTHONY READHEAD (California Institute of Technology): The spirit of competition is one of the things, of course, that drives scientists. Keep our fingers crossed. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: And as our new vision of the universe emerges, strange ideas reveal themselves. STAN WOOSLEY (University of California, Santa Cruz): Stars are the ultimate alchemist. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON: Those elements are the building blocks of life. Hello.
How We Got Here: An Inquiry-Based Activity About Human Evolution Rebecca M. Price + Author Affiliations E-mail: becca.price@uwb.edu Show your students the face of a baby chimpanzee, and they will be startled and amazed by how human she is (see the photo). Students spend the majority of class time testing the hypothesis that the evolution of skull shape within the human lineage took place largely by truncating the development of a chimpanzee-like ancestor. This learning module is flexible; one can choose learning goals that are appropriate to the course content (see the table). Step 1. Step 2. Chimpanzee. The startling similarities between baby chimpanzees and humans engage students in the scientific process. Step 3. Step 4. Three different inquiry cycles. The steps targeting the 5e inquiry cycle (dark colors) are shown; they may also include secondary foci (light colors). Step 5. Step 6. Step 7. Step 8. Step 9. Steps 1 to 9 are framed by testing a hypothesis about the morphology of the human ancestor. A modifiable learning module. About the author
Evolution: Library: Threat of Tuberculosis It's sobering to realize that the ancient scourge, tuberculosis, which has been found in 2,000-year-old mummies, remains a global health threat despite modern medicine. In fact, TB is the leading infectious disease killer in the world, causing nearly 3 million deaths in 1996. Millions of people -- fully one-third of the world's population -- are infected with the TB bacterium. Five to 10 percent of those will develop the active disease, for reasons we only partially understand. The bacteria can lie dormant for many years, and become active when the host is weakened by factors such as stress, poor nutrition, diabetes, or HIV infection. Once active, TB destroys tissue in the lungs and becomes contagious. Antibiotics and public health measures failed to wipe out TB, although until the mid-1980s its rates had been brought very low in the developed world. Several drugs can cure TB, but only if they are taken for many months. Russian prisons are a major source of multi-drug-resistant TB.