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.

Dragonflies are cool, but their babies are even cooler

 

I just read this story over at Wired and I have to say that it is, quite possibly, the greatest thing I have ever read in my entire life.  Better even than "Go the F*ck to Sleep" or "Everyone Poops".  It goes into detail about dragonflies which, in my estimation, are some of the coolest critters around.  There are videos of nymphs catching prey with their offensively quick and extremely protrusible lower jaws.  There are pictures of nymphs molting, nymphs lounging and nymphs that appear to be smiling.  There are also several little facts about dragonflies and nymphs that will, should you be of delicate disposition, make you feel slightly queasy and possibly faint.  A brief selection of said facts is below.

• Dragonflies are thought to be the first winged insects to evolve.  This happened about 300 million years ago.  This is roughly 50 million years after amphibians began crawling around on land and about 50 million years before dinosaurs began their rule.
• Some dragonfly adults can fly at up to 35 miles an hour.
• Nymphs have jet powered butts!  They suck up water into their anuses and squeeze it out when they want to evade predators or, in my experience, zip away from an interested entomology student who is just trying to finish up his collection and would really rather that the nymph in question STAY STILL for just one more sec...
• They can shoot out their labrum (translation:  lower lip) to catch prey almost an entire body length away.  It is a good thing these critters are small.  How much would it stink to be caught and eaten by one of these things?  It would probably ruin your day.
• Those jet powered butts are also the main respiratory surface for the little critters.  That's right, folks.  They breathe through their butts.  I once new a guy who could suck air into his butt so he could break wind on command, but now that I am thinking about it that isn't really the same thing.  Sorry I brought it up.

 

Giant Megalapteryx Foot! An exercise in Critical Thinking.

Since I am a teacher and the internet is a thing, I often get students showing me pictures and videos that they found on "this one website" which is totally credible because it is run by "this one dude who probably has a Ph.D. in science or something.  Astrology or something?" Anyway, this reared its head today, probably because it was found on the IFLS  Facebook feed. I like to use these things to help the students sharpen their critical thinking skills.         

The caption for this picture is technically correct, which, as we all know, is the best kind of correct.  However it does require a bit of description before it becomes correct in a way that is more than technical.  Allow me to explain.  

First, the foot in the picture is, indeed, from a Megalapteryx.  So far, so good.  Megalypteryx is sometimes better known as the Moa, a giant flightless bird from New Zealand.  Think Kevin from "Up", only not nearly as colorful.  They went extinct in around 1500 A.D.

Second, the Moa is, indeed, a dinosaur.  All birds are, and not just in the technical, "we classified them so they are dinosaurs" kind of way.  As mentioned in a different post, taxonomists now classify them as "Avian Dinosaurs" due to the number of structural and physiological similarities between living birds and extinct dinosaurs.  So technically, Megalapteryx is a dinosaur.  

Third, the flesh on it is well preserved.  So if we put all those things together, technically the foot in the picture is the possibly the best preserved dinosaur tissue to date.  None of those things are wrong, but the way it is presented isn't that great.  You are supposed to see that picture and think, "Holy cow!  They discovered a dinosaur foot and it totally still has skin on it!  How cool is that?!?"  However, you are also probably supposed to think that the dinosaur foot in question is 65 million years old or more which, I am sorry to say, it is not.  

Don't fret though.  The fact that something like this existed only about 600 years ago is fairly amazing, and just look at that foot!  Could it be any more dinosaur-like?  Yet another easy to see clue that shows that birds evolved from dinosaurs.        

    

Giant Bird Ancestor

As it turns out I am still a 9 year old kid.  I love dinosaurs and until today my favorite was the always classic Tyrannosaurus rex, mostly for its size and ferocity, but also because I am a bit afraid that if it is not my favorite one will spontaneously appear in my backyard and eat me.  Apparently I am a 9 year old boy in more ways than one.  I say “until today” because as of now, T. rex is no longer the king.  The recently discovered bones of Siats meekerorum dethroned T. rex due to the fact that it is, as one of my students put it, offensively large.  Preliminary estimates put this thing at about 4 tons and stretching to the length of a school bus.  Next time you have a chance, go stand next to a school bus and tell me that a walking, breathing, roaring creature of that stature wouldn’t make you want to curl up in a ball and call for your mommy.  You might notice that in the picture below the critter has feathers covering its body.  Since it was a theropod dinosaur, like modern birds, it most likely had feathers.  Personally I think the feathers make it slightly adorable.

Siats meekerorum.  Because I didn't have enough trouble sleeping.

Chickenosaurus

I am going to go out on a limb here and state, unequivocally, that I like the Earth.  Except for a few notable occasions in the past involving what can only be described as biblical amounts of rain-water entering my basement, it has been nice and hospitable to me and my family.  I am rarely struck by a meteor when I leave the house, and, thanks to the fact that there is ample oxygen in the atmosphere, I can breathe normally as long as I am not in the midst of an asthma attack.

The planet wasn't always this enticing to life.  At various times over the previous 4.6ish billion years the planet has seemed downright antagonistic to the squishy things that keep evolving on it.  You are probably aware of the fact that despite their long reign as kings and queens of the planet, there are no dinosaurs tromping about the place anymore. This, I should point out, is probably for the best.  It is one thing to be amazed by the sheer size and majesty of a 75 foot long Apatosaurus skeleton in your local museum of Natural History, but quite another to actually encounter an office building sized animal on your way to your car in the morning.  I would, in all likelihood, pee myself should such an event transpire.   

Despite the overall looseness of my bladder and the fact that we have all seen “Jurassic Park,” a group of scientists led by Jack Horner are in the process of building a dinosaur using the DNA of a chicken as their model.  This may seem silly given that a dinosaur of any size is an imposing reptile while a chicken is, well, a chicken.  How can they plan to resurrect dinosaurs by using chicken DNA?  

It turns out that chickens, and indeed all birds, are direct descendants of dinosaurs.  In fact, some taxonomists have decided that birds are not only related to dinosaurs they have begun splitting dinosaurs into two different groups:  Avian dinosaurs (birds) and Non-Avian dinosaurs (all the other ones).  

From the massive Cassowary to the tiny hummingbird, all birds are dinosaurs, and this is most evident from their DNA.  Horner and others have discovered atavisms, or hidden traits, in birds that can be activated by tinkering with their DNA.  Mess with the DNA that controls beak formation and you get a beak with teeth.  Mess with the DNA that controls tail formation and you can produce a reptilian bony tail.  Tweak the DNA associated with wing formation and you can get a wing with claws.  Change all of this DNA in a single bird and you can get a chicken with teeth, a bony tail, and claw wings.  Still not exactly a T. Rex but significantly more dinosaur like than the current model of chicken.  

For more information on the chickenosaurus take a look at the video below.  I am also including YouTube links to an amazing BBC documentary on the dissection of a Cassowary for any that are interested.     

TED Talk - Jack Horner:  How to build a dinosaur from a chicken

Inside Nature's Giants (Cassowary Dissection) Part 1

Inside Nature's Giants (Cassowary Dissection) Part 2

Inside Nature's Giants (Cassowary Dissection) Part 3

Inside Nature's Giants (Cassowary Dissection) Part 4