Our August 28 blog entry focused on developing concepts related to the methods in and nature of science. In that post, titled “Put On a Happy Face!,” the inspiration came from scientific investigation of the relationship between suggestive language and involuntary contractions of facial muscles. The goals of that post were to help teachers assist […]

Very soon we will meet our new students and their parents. Everyone is excited but a bit nervous and perhaps anxious. Intuitively, we know smiling will help put others at ease. Everyone has heard the old wives’ tale that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile; thus, smile more and decrease the energy […]

Bats, caves, danger and exotic locales. That should catch your students’ attention! The big story here is the co-evolution of viruses and their nonhuman animal hosts, who seem to have a harmless, symbiotic relationship with viruses that cause deadly outbreaks in humans. Though this story is about Marburg virus and a fruit bat, the concepts […]

How many species were described for the first time in the literature in 2007? Five hundred? 1,000? 10,000? Would you believe 18, 516? That’s right, in a single calendar year! “The majority of the 18,516 species described (named) in 2007 were invertebrate animals (75.6 percent), vascular plants (11.1 percent) and vertebrates (6.7 percent),” reports ScienceDaily.com […]

Forensic science is always interesting to students. The mystery and puzzle solving are hard to resist. Here’s a real case you can use to get students thinking scientifically while integrating knowledge of insect life cycles—a timely topic for spring. The NYtimes.com reports how the unsolved cause of death of a woman in Las Vegas was […]

Thirty, twenty-nine, maybe thirty-two? How many days until we start our summer break? If you have a fabulous summer vacation planned, you are probably aware of the exact number! Maybe you plan on hiking one of the U.S. national parks or rafting a wild river. Or perhaps your plans take you to more exotic locales […]

An oxymoron? Perhaps, but 500 million years ago, such a creature roamed the vast seas. That was before the dinosaurs and concurrent with the Cambrian explosion. Scientists who put the fossil parts together described the giant shrimp this way:

. . . this underwater predator had a segmented body, a pair of claws and a circular […]

I recently read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. One of the issues Pollan calls readers’ attention to is the meaning of “organic.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture appears to have a clear sense of what it means to be organic. See their web page on which 12 links to organic farming-related documents appear. Most […]

Success stories in animal preservation are not very common. Since 1973 when the Endangered Species Act was passed, only 16 species of over 1,350 have been delisted. The whooping crane is not one of them, although its numbers have increased from 21 in 1941 to over 350 today. On February 22, 2009, the NYTimes.com published […]

According to TV’s CSI, forensic science can do no wrong. Thus, if you are a criminal, wear gloves and a hairnet, brush over footprints left in the dirt, and leave no evidence behind.
Remember the O.J. Simpson trial for the murder of Nicole Brown? It appears the police botched the evidence collection, calling the investigation into […]