Genomic Revolution

One of my favorite sites to find short, interesting videos that I can use to spice up class is TED.com.  I feel a bit like a crack dealer here by providing the first taste, but if you have never been there before, check it out and be prepared to spend the rest of the day doing nothing but clicking on video after video.  The one below is on the Genomic Revolution.  Click the video below to learn about how your life is going to change thanks to the genomic revolution.

  

Your 3.5 Billion Year Old Family Tree

One of the coolest bits about teaching students evolution is that they get to learn that they are related to every living thing.  For example, Dunkleosteus, the critter pictured above, is your 185 millionth great-grandparent.  If you take your family tree even further back you can find that you and that oak tree outside share an ancestor from about 1.4 billion years ago. 

Evolution as a Story - Part 1

I love studying evolution.  There are many reasons for this, but one of the most compelling is that it is the story of how we, as humans, came to be.  It is a story of adaptation and extinction, success and failure, and if told correctly it can help students to a greater understanding of just how cool this whole evolution thing is.  I mean, we are related to fish and oak trees for crying out loud.  How cool is that?  I plan on writing about how I tell the story of our evolution in a future post or two, but for right now I'd like to share a few things I have made which help me tell this story to my classes.

First, I have a short textbook that I wrote for use in my Zoology class which focuses on the evolutionary story of the major groups of organisms including invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.  Each 4-6 page chapter deals with a particular group of animals and explains the main points of their evolution in what I hope is a humorous yet educational manner.  This book is available for sale as a digital download at my Teachers Pay Teachers store should you be interested.  There you can download a free sample to see what it is like as well as purchase either individual chapters or the entire textbook, should you feel so moved.  And because I am such a stand-up kinda guy, for a limited I am giving away the evolution chapter of my textbook for free!    

To supplement the textbook I put together graphic organizers for the chapters on Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals.  I give these out to the students so they can use them to take notes while we discuss these topics.  Click the links to go to my store to download free higher resolution copies of these organizers.  (The images below are just JPEGs because I am relatively new to blogger.com and haven't figured out if it is possible to link files to posts.)  

Finally, I have made Prezis which use the graphic organizers as the main focal point to help the students follow the story we are discussing.  The links to the Prezis are below.  If you are a regular user of Prezi, feel free to make a copy of these presentations for use in your classroom.  If you are not a regular user of Prezi, it is an amazing, free, online presentation tool that I can't recommend highly enough.

Reptile Evolution Prezi Link

Bird Evolution Prezi Link

Mammal Evolution Prezi Link

New Video Series from PBS - Your Inner Fish

I am more excited than I probably should be for this new series from PBS.  "Your Inner Fish" is one of my favorite evolution books and now PBS and the author, Neil Shubin, have teamed up to make a 3 part series on the subject.  It is slated to start on April 9 at 10pm Eastern/9pm Central.  Check out the website for more information and a few videos.  

Teaching Evolution Part 1: Increasing teacher knowledge

Last night at the Creation Museum, Bill Nye the Science Guy debated Ken Ham the Young Earth Creationist on the question "Is creation a viable model for origins?"  I don't want to spoil it for you because that ruins the fun of watching, so I'll give the answer in Spanish:  "No."

The debate over creationism and evolution has been going on for quite a while, and the legality of teaching creationism in public schools has been addressed by US courts at a variety of levels.  Thankfully, the courts have almost always sided with science and said, in no uncertain terms, that you cannot advocate for religion in public school classrooms, and creationism amounts to doing just that.  

That doesn't make evolution any easier to teach, though.  While many students are more than happy to learn about where they came from there are those that offer a bit more of a challenge.  Some students state that they don't believe in evolution but they are willing to listen and memorize things for the test.  Some refuse to participate when the evolution unit rolls around.  Others push it a bit further and engage in debates with their teachers and fellow students, often coming in with prepared remarks often given to them by parents of pastors.  Believe me - I have been given my fair share of pamphlets, Jack Chick books, and prayer cards over the years and I live in an area where this is not a major issue.  My colleagues in unnamed southern states that rhyme with “Malabama” and “Mennessee” have had whole groups of students form prayer circles in class, turn their desks around and read their bibles, and engage in mass walk-outs to protest the teaching of evolution.    

So given the fact that this subject can be controversial, how is a teacher to deal with students that find it difficult to accept the theory of evolution?  It isn't an easy thing to do for a wide variety of reasons, and in a series of posts I am going to attempt to address this by sharing the strategies that have worked for me over the years.  You may find that you have similar issues, or, should your issue not be covered here, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll tackle it in a future post.  

So lets get out of the gate here with the thing that is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult thing to address:  Teacher knowledge of evolution.

In this day and age of Common Core, state mandated testing, RTI, reading and writing across the curriculum, and the many other initiatives teachers have to deal with on a regular basis, most teachers are highly educated in pedagogy (which totally sounds like something you could be arrested for) but not as educated in the content of our discipline.  Because almost all of our inservice time is taken up learning how to implement these initiatives there isn’t a whole lot of time for us Biology teachers to further educate ourselves on content knowledge.  We all come out of college with a bachelors degree which is essentially the equivalent of a black belt in martial arts.  It seems like it is a real accomplishment, and it totally is, but it basically just proves that you have the ability to learn things and you are now ready for the next level.  It does not necessarily mean that you have mastered anything.  

As an example, I felt that I had a really good grasp of cellular respiration because I did well in cell and molecular biology and passed my tests and did well in the lab and was, in general, a ferociously amazing person.  Sometimes it physically hurt to be as awesome as I was.  When I first taught cell respiration to my students I realized that I was lacking a bit in the general knowledge department.  “Where do those NAD+ molecules come from?” inquired one student.  “Why does adding electrons to it suddenly make it NADH?” asked another.  “What, exactly, causes a cell to switch from aerobic to anaerobic respiration?” demanded yet another.  “Do you pick your own clothes out because those pants don’t go with that shirt,” said a 4th who had clearly stopped giving any semblance of a crap about cell respiration.

Aside from explaining that, yes I do pick out my own clothes and yes these pants did go with this shirt, thank-you very much, I couldn’t answer these questions.  I knew what NAD+ and NADH were, and I also knew what anaerobic and aerobic respiration were, but I had no idea how to address the specific things these kids wanted to know.  It was only after doing a bunch of research and asking more experienced teachers that I learned the answers.  Evolution is similar but can be so much worse.  When have you ever been told by a student that they don’t believe in cellular respiration?  

We all know the basics of evolution.  We know who Darwin was and all about his journey on the HMS Beagle.  We are aware of fossils and probably can name some of the cool ones like Archaeopteryx and Basilosaurus.  We can read and interpret cladograms and help the students determine a common ancestor.  But often our knowledge is lacking when it comes to the details that help transform evolution from a series of events and facts into a coherent story, and it is this story of life that makes biology amazing and comprehensible to the students.

As I mentioned before, addressing the lack-of-knowledge issue is both the easiest and the most difficult problem to tackle.  It is easy because all it takes is a some time to read books and articles, watch videos and debates, and discuss with your colleagues the things you are having trouble with.  It is also difficult because it quite a bit of time and, as already mentioned, time is not a luxury most of us have.    

To get you started on the journey, I have added links to many places where you can begin to enhance your understanding of evolutionary biology.  Some are great for classroom use while others might border on the NSFW (Not Safe For Work).  Take some time and enhance your knowledge of evolution. I'll update this list as I find/remember resources. If you have any ideas, chuck 'em into the comments and I'll add them in.

Talk Origins Archive - One of the oldest creation/evolution sites.  It has basically all of the information you will ever need to answer almost any question a student might have.  Spend enough time on this site and you will most likely never worry about teaching evolution again.

Ẅhat Next? - John Kyrk - An animated timeline of the earth showing basically everything that happened in the evolution of both the universe and the life in it.  Move the slider along and watch tiny animated atoms, fish, dinosaurs, primates and everything in between inhabit your screen.

Pharyngula - a blog by popular researcher/blogger PZ Myers.  Often irreverent and potentially offensive, but almost always worth checking out. (Occasionally NSFW for language),

Your Inner Fish - A book by Neil Shubin.  Starts off with a wonderful description of the work involved in discovering Tiktaalik and continues with an easy to read and totally informative look at how evolution has shaped the human body.  Should be required reading for anyone interested in evolutionary biology.

Understanding Evolution Website - a repository for teaching materials including activities and  labs, as well as resources for teacher education.  

1:1 Computing - Data Analysis and Climate Change

I love this comic.  In the past few weeks I have heard at least 3 impromptu lectures, normally at top volume, on the general theme of "WOW IT'S COLD OUT!  SEE?  CLIMATE CHANGE TOTALLY ISN'T REAL!  STUPID SCIENTISTS!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!"  This comic does a great job of explaining why that sort of statement doesn't make much sense.

People, by their nature, are not normally very good at looking at long range problems.  If it isn't something happening right now then it probably isn't going to get much attention.  Because of this, humans are always going to struggle with concepts like Climate Change and Evolution because neither of them are happening right now.  Well, technically they are but the results aren't immediately visible.

Students, being people, also have this problem.  Students, being teenagers, also have additional problems like acne, the girl that sits in front of them in Algebra, soccer practice, prom dates, what to do on the weekend, who they hate this week and, of course, their parents.  With all of these additional problems it makes it incredibly unlikely that they will pay attention if you are telling them things unless those things will immediately impact them.  All teachers have experience with this to some extent.  "There is a test on Friday," isn't nearly as likely to drive the students to study as "There is a test tomorrow." Additionally, "There is a test in 6 minutes," is where you will see the most studying, mostly by students who ignored the first two statements.

It is for this reason that I have taken to not telling them about climate change.  Oh, it isn't as if the

subject isn't in my curriculum - it totally is and it takes up about 2 weeks of our time - but I don't normally lecture on it until the end of the unit.  It has been much more effective to have them look at the data for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

The activity I use takes one of two forms.  Before each student had a chromebook I would give the students printouts of actual data sets from NOAA, The Hadley Centre, the World Bank, and others and ask the students to make several different graphs of the data.  For example, one of the graphs would be from the Hadley Centre data on temperature anomalies of the past century while another graph was from the World Bank data on oil consumption since the 1960's.  The students make graphs, compare the data, and determine if there is a relationship between the two data sets.  This is repeated for the Hadley Centre data and the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from NOAA and for all of the other data sets.  I would then ask them to write up their conclusions on how the variables are related to each other.

Now that each student has a chromebook I share the data sets with them using Google Drive and ask them to make the graphs using Google Sheets.  They then transfer these graphs to Google Docs and then do their variable analysis there.  So much simpler!  Also,since I totally love using these computers in my classroom, I have modified this activity for my Advanced students so that after they have made the graphs from the available data sets they must then go find alternative sources to determine if multiple data sets match up.  This requires quite a bit more time and a lot more work from the students (and me!) but it is worth it.

Whichever method you use, it gives the students practice making and analyzing graphs which is a big part of the Next Generation Science Standards, and it helps them become familiar with real world data sets.  Also, hopefully the next time someone starts in on a grocery store checkout line lecture about cold weather and climate change, the students will have enough experience with the vast amount of data supporting the facts of climate change to know enough not to listen.     

1:1 Computing. The Two Column Notes Sheet

In the second part of this series, I figured I’d just jump right in with an example of something that I use in my classes.  It is simple to use and incorporates the Chromebooks or Laptops into your classroom in a way that avoids the whole “my principal told me I have to use these things so I am gonna do it whether it makes sense or not” feeling of some other activities.

In my zoology class, students spend quite a bit of time watching videos from the series “Inside Nature’s Giants”, many of which can be found on YouTube.  I have them watch these videos for three main reasons.  First, it is a great way to show dissections performed by top notch scientists and to expose the students to real dissections of large animals we could never fit into a high school science lab.  The camera work is amazing and, if you can get past a bit of blood and guts, you get to see things like the entire digestive system of an elephant laid out on the floor.  

Second, and this is a big one for a group of students who have never really studied evolutionary biology, they are not shy at all about discussing the evolutionary history and adaptations of these organisms.  Each episode normally features a few minutes on the ancestry and environmental changes that led to the critter we see today.  They also do an amazing job of showing things like the 15 foot long Laryngeal Nerve in a giraffe or the evolution of shark teeth from scales in the episode on the Great White.  

Third, in at least two episodes one of the main anatomists on the show, Joy Reidenberg, climbs in a freaking whale.  You read that correctly.  She climbs in a whale.  In.  A.  Whale.  

Totally cool.

Anyway, I have them watch these as a primer for the animal they are going to dissect the next day.  For example, we watch the episode on the Giant Squid before we dissect a squid, and I show them the episode on the Great White shark before we dissect the dogfish shark.  This gives them an opportunity to compare and contrast the large animal on the video with the one on their dissecting tray.  This comparison is, in fact, the primary thing I look for in their dissection write-up.  

Watching the videos also gives them a chance to work on picking out relevant details.  Sometimes I  just have them watch and take notes about what is interesting. (Holy cow!  That lady just climbed in the whale!)  Other times I have a more specific reason for watching like “pick out adaptations and evolutionary trends that allow the alligator to live both in the water and on land”.    

While watching the video I have them work on a document called the Two Column Note Sheet.  This note sheet, pictured below, has two columns:  a column designated for notes and a column designated for other things.  In the first column the students will type out anything that seems interesting or relevant to the main point of the video.  They fill this part out while watching the video.  

The second column is for images, video links, or any other information that might be useful in helping them understand their notes.  I encourage them to go wild in this section because it is digital they are not wasting any paper or printer ink.  This not only encourages the students to engage with the material on a deeper level than had they simply taken the notes, it also allows me to see what sort of connections the students are making.  It is sort of a quick check to see if they are thinking about the material of just finding pictures.  For example, one student wrote about shark tooth evolution in column 1 and then just had a picture of a sharks tooth in column 2.  A second student had the same note about tooth evolution  but had several pictures of teeth ranging from sharks, crocodiles, dinosaurs and humans.  This second student had also written “...all from the same ancestor?” in the area below the picture.  The first student didn’t think much about the concept beyond the obvious, while the second student was clearly looking to the larger pattern.

The last part of the two column notes sheet is the summary box.  In this box I ask them to write a few sentences to tie together their notes from column 1 and the pictures and links from column 2.  I’m not looking for anything fancy here, just a few complete sentences that show me that they are thinking about what they just watched.

There are many other benefits to using Chromebooks and laptops in the classroom and I will expand on a few other activities in the next part of this series.  

To get your very own copy of the two column notes sheet, click the link below and make a copy of it.

Link to Google Doc version of Two Column Notes Sheet.   

1:1 Computing - It's Kind of a Big Deal

Technology is amazing.  My son, who shall remain nameless until I forget that he is supposed to remain nameless, is fascinated by Egypt.  He is currently reading a series of books called the Kane Chronicles (I think) which centers around a few kids (Calvin and Sadie?) who are descended from pharaohs (I think) who battle the old Egyptian gods (maybe?) in order to save the world.  The abundance of Egyptian references in the books has made him curious about that part of history and now he is always asking me questions I can't answer.

"Siri," he says after grabbing my iPhone.  "Show me a picture of Anubis because my dad has no idea what he is talking about."  I may or may not have deserved that little dig, but due to the fact that in the previous 5 minutes I had told him Anubis was part shark and part octopus, and that there was a movie based on the legend of when Anubis ate a helicopter while it was flying over the ocean, I probably did.  I like to keep my kids on their toes.     

Anyway, Siri completed the search and came back with pictures and information about Anubis which immediately called into question my version of things.  So now my kid doesn’t trust me anymore.  Not that he should, what with all the stuff I make up, but it still hurts.  

The point I am trying to make is that this child of mine, who until 2 years ago still occasionally put his underpants on backwards, is now able to lecture me about Egyptian gods.  And I am totally OK with that.  It makes life more interesting, certainly, but it also means that he is becoming well prepared for this time in which information is always at our fingertips.  He knows he doesn’t have to believe everything he hears because he can always check for himself.  

Technology makes this sort of thing - the quick, real-time research to find something out - significantly easier than it used to be.  This is the sort of world in which our kids and our students are growing up.  The age of memorizing the periodic table or the steps in the Calvin Cycle is over because, as the old iPhone ads used to say, there is an app for that.  When you pull out the tiny rectangle from your pocket that is typically always connected to the internet, you have no excuse for not knowing the atomic mass of Xenon or when Lincoln was president.   

This is a frightening time for some teachers because it means the old way of doing things is on its

way out, even before we really have a new way of doing things.  Teachers are no longer the ones who dispense knowledge to help fill the little sponges that sit in their desks.  Technology, like cell phones and laptops in the classroom, present a significant adaptive challenge because they change the rules of the game.  Those sponges don’t need us to fill them with facts anymore because they have access to the collective knowledge of the entire human race.

What makes things a bit more interesting is that many schools are embracing this new paradigm and are issuing laptops to each and every student.  No longer are the students stuck using a 3G network to correct their teachers, they can now do it using the school’s WiFi network.   My school has been running a Chromebook pilot program (full implementation in 2014-2015 school year) and I have been lucky enough to be a part of it.  In the past year I have used the Chromebooks in my classes and there have been a few times when they have been a bit of a nuisance.  The vast majority of the time, however, I have found them to be a valuable tool in teaching my students.  

What is a teacher to do when the kids can access all of the facts without us?  Is technology in the classroom something to be worried about or embraced?  In this series of posts I’ll give my opinions on these and other questions, as well as offer (hopefully) helpful suggestions as to how you can use the little machines in your classroom.

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to share them.