BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium | Biology Curriculum Development | Curriculum Resources » 021809 http://bioquest.org Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:56:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Darwin Resources – Part 1 http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/darwin-resources-1/ http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/darwin-resources-1/#comments Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:05:03 +0000 Sam Donovan http://bioquest.org/?p=431 As you already know — Darwin is having a big year in 2009. All the incredible resources are providing great opportunities to learn, and teach more about evolution. I’ve listed a few of my favorites here and I hope that you will include others you have found useful in the comments section below. Here [...]]]>

Portraits of Darwin

As you already know — Darwin is having a big year in 2009. All the incredible resources are providing great opportunities to learn, and teach more about evolution. I’ve listed a few of my favorites here and I hope that you will include others you have found useful in the comments section below. Here is a listing of the materials discussed below:

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online

This is a comprehensive online collection including Darwin’s published works, his research notebooks, and related materials. It has resources for getting started (have you read the On the Origin of Species?), and materials for the serious scholar (you can find all 6 editions here). I have particularly enjoyed the collection of Darwin’s sketches of his specimens and the BBC audio book format of Darwin’s Beagle Diary.

Society for the Study of Evolution Birthday Card Video

From:

Robert Pennock, Chair, SSE Education Committee Thomas Meagher, Chair, SSE Darwin 200 Working Group To:

Evolution Directory (EvoDir) mailing list

We hope all have had a nice Birthday Celebration for Charles Darwin on 12 February. We invite you to view the SSE YouTube birthday greetings at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn7zLGJE9EY.

This is a fun collection of evolutionary biologist singing and saying happy birthday to Chuck.

Scientific American Darwin Special Issue

I’ve often found that Scientific American strikes the right tone for introducing difficult scientific content to lay audiences. The January 2009 issue has a diverse collection of Darwin and evolution related articles includeing:

  • Diversity Revealed: From Atoms to Traits. By David M. Kingsley Charles Darwin saw that random variations in organisms provide fodder for evolution. Modern scientists are revealing how that diversity arises from changes to DNA and can add up to complex creatures or even cultures.
  • The Science of Spore–The “Evolution” of Gaming. By Ed Regis A computer game illustrates the difference between building your own simulated creature and real-life natural selection.
  • The Evolutionary Origins of Hiccups and Hernias. By Neil H. Shubin How biological hand-me-downs inherited from fish and tadpoles evolved into human maladies.
  • Putting Evolution to Use in the Everyday World. By David P. Mindell Understanding of evolution is fostering powerful technologies for health care, law enforcement, ecology, and all manner of optimization and design problems.

You can see the entire TOC here and all the articles are available online.

Year of Science Celebrates Evolution

The Year of Science 2009 (YoS09) is a national, year-long celebration of science. The goals of the project include engaging the public and improving public understanding about how science works, why it matters, and who scientists are. Each month has a different science theme and Evolution takes center stage in February. As an attempt to raise public awareness, I think the section call “Exploring Evolutionary Thought” is particularly useful. It includes brief interviews with more than 20 scientists in which they describe the role that evolution plays in their work.

Science – Celebrating Darwin

Science is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth with a variety of news features, scientific reviews and other special content, all collected here. The materials include:

  • An ongoing companion blog titled “Origns: A History of Beginnings” which is organized into the categories, “All Things Darwin”, “Evolution and Culture”, “Origin Essays”, and “The Science of Origins”.
  • Podcasts, book reviews and essays related to Darwin and evolution.
  • Links to the February 6th issue which focuses on speciation (some of this content requires a subscription).

It should be interesting to watch this collection grow throughout the year.

National Center for Science Education — Darwin in the Popular Press

From a very useful compendium of popular press coverage of Darwin’s Anniversary at the National Center for Science Edcuation:

In recognition of Darwin’s 200th birthday, February 12, 2009, the mass media are again taking notice of Darwin’s life, accomplishments, and importance and influence. Writing to Charles Lyell in 1860, Darwin was wryly amused at the sort of newspaper coverage he was receiving in the wake of the publication of the Origin of Species: “I have received in a Manchester Newspaper a rather … good squib, showing that I have proved ‘might is right’, & therefore that Napoleon is right & every cheating Tradesman is also right.” Fortunately, today’s journalists exhibit a higher degree of accuracy than their Victorian colleagues at the Manchester Guardian! Herewith a sampling of the recent coverage of the Darwin bicentennial.

Click here to read the full post at the NCSE web site. I includes information about and links to content from Science News, National Public Radio, BBC, CBC, The New York Times and several more.

]]> http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/darwin-resources-1/feed/ 0 Welcome to the new BioQUEST blog http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/welcome-to-the-new-bioquest-blog/ http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/welcome-to-the-new-bioquest-blog/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:33:29 +0000 Sam Donovan http://bioquest.org/?p=331 Welcome to the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium (BQCC) Blog. We are very excited to have you as a reader and we hope that you will find and share useful information here. There are several things we hope to accomplish using this blog including: Sharing information more efficiently about BQCC activities and resources. We are currently involved a [...]]]>

Blog IconWelcome to the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium (BQCC) Blog. We are very excited to have you as a reader and we hope that you will find and share useful information here. There are several things we hope to accomplish using this blog including:

  • Sharing information more efficiently about BQCC activities and resources. We are currently involved a in diverse collection of projects and collaborations which may be of interest to members of the consortium and we think that short, informal blog posts will be an effective way to share what we are working on.
  • Establishing a more dynamic conversation about undergraduate biology education reform. In addition to making it easier for us to share ideas, the blog format should make it easier for anyone to share their suggestions and feedback as comments on a post.
  • Highlighting ideas and resources from our community. The blog is just part of our new web interface that makes it easier to feature user generated content that we have collected over our 20+ year history.
  • Pushing ourselves. We think it is important to continuously try new things and evaluate their effectiveness. We hope that you will join us in this experiment, give it a chance, and let us know what works and what doesn’t.

To contact us please post a comment, send us an e-mail, or call Sue at [608/363-2012].

Sue Risseeuw – Project Manager [risseeuw@beloit.edu]
Ethel Stanley – Director [stanleye@beloit.edu]
Sam Donovan – Acting Blog Editor [sdonovan@pitt.edu]

]]> http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/welcome-to-the-new-bioquest-blog/feed/ 2 ActionBioscience: An issues approach to biology http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/actionbioscience-an-issues-approach-to-biology/ http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/actionbioscience-an-issues-approach-to-biology/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:18:29 +0000 Sam Donovan http://bioquest.org/?p=338 BioQUEST has had the pleasure of collaborating with many interesting projects over its 20+ year history. We are using Partner Profiles to share some of that richness with the undergraduate biology education community. For this profile we spoke with Oksana Hlodan, the Editor in Chief of ActionBioscience.org. The profile interview was conducted via e-mail over [...]]]>

ActionBioscience.org

BioQUEST has had the pleasure of collaborating with many interesting projects over its 20+ year history. We are using Partner Profiles to share some of that richness with the undergraduate biology education community. For this profile we spoke with Oksana Hlodan, the Editor in Chief of ActionBioscience.org. The profile interview was conducted via e-mail over several days in February 2009.

In a nutshell, what is Action Bioscience and why should faculty teaching undergraduate biology be aware of it?

ActionBioscience.org is the education web site of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and was created to promote bioscience literacy by examining issues in seven topical areas:

Partial Screenshot from ActionBioscience.org

  • environment – why preserve life’s variety?
  • biodiversity – how fragile is our planet?
  • genomics – what does the genome reveal?
  • biotechnology – how is biotech changing the world?
  • evolution – what is life’s history on Earth?
  • new frontiers in science – why is it the age of biology?
  • bioscience education – what do we know about teaching and learning science?
Articles addressing these issues include links to other websites and resources to enhance bioscience teaching. The peer-reviewed articles offer a convenient way to incorporate current issues and up-to-date discoveries into the classroom. Discussion of the articles can be used to foster student analysis of issues and the application of course concepts to real world situations.When Scientific American chose the web site as one of the five best biology sites in 2003, it stated that,

“This straightforward site … contains annotated papers by the world’s most esteemed scientists, plus classroom materials; each article is even correlated to the U.S. National Science Education Standards so teachers will have no problem working the site’s databases into their curricula.”

Since this award was given, the site’s educational resources have expanded to include Spanish translations of select articles, a blog about educational technology, links to articles in the journal BioScience and the AIBS media library. The web site draws almost 2.5 million page views a year and, according to a 2004 online survey, more than half of the readership consists of educators and students.

Can you identify 1 or 2 specific resources that are popular or that you would recommend to faculty teaching introductory biology?

As a starting point I would recommend:
One of the biggest challenges to learning from topical science issues, such as cloning and climate change, is learning how to deal with the information. Basic scientific concepts provide a framework, but students must also know about the processes—how research is pursued, how conclusions are justified, even how scientists may sometimes make mistakes or be shaped by cultural or political influences. Allchin’s article lists the features of the nature of the science that are most important to know, provides examples of errors made by science and how the nature of science self-corrects these problems, and offers teaching strategies to introduce and reinforce scientific habits of mind. Included are links to activities to illustrate the nature of science, including black box exercises and mock forensic activities. Bull’s article is important because it addresses evolutionary biology, an area of science that is so deeply misunderstood. He provides ample concrete examples in accessible terms of how evolution affects research and impacts our lives. Supplementary teaching activities include preparing a mock HIV court case and tracking a Hantavirus outbreak.
Neither of the above articles are the most popular statistically — Intelligent Design, with views presented by 3 ID proponents countered by the views of 3 evolutionary biologists is the big one. That’s understandable since the general public (half our audience) is very interested in this topic. However, I would certainly not start intro bio with this topic. The other most-read articles are:
As you can see biotechnology and evolution topics are a big draw.

Where do you get your material? Can faculty submit ideas for topics or contribute resources?

Generally, our staff contacts potential authors with an invitation to submit an article or lesson. However, we consider ideas submitted by writers who provide a synopsis and brief outline of the proposed article.All of our articles examine issues in one of the topic areas listed above. All content is peer-reviewed, and many articles are accompanied by lesson plans written by professional educators and keyed to US National Science Education Standards, with vetted links to teaching resources published online elsewhere. Articles range from 1600 to 2400 words, and are written at the level of National Geographic or Discover magazine. We pay an honorarium for published articles. Many of the articles are translated into Spanish by Hispanic scientists. You can learn more about our publishing policies at [http://www.actionbioscience.org/aboutus.html].

Who should folks contact if they have comment, questions or suggestions?

Please feel free to contact:

Oksana Hloden

Oksana Hlodan, Editor in Chief, ohlodan@aibs.org

Sarah Sheehan, Editorial Manager, ssheehan@aibs.org

Editors Note:

Thanks so much to Oksana for sharing information about ActionBioscience. I have always valued the site for the rich content it provides and the fact that the issues focus really grabs students. BioQUEST has had a long relationship with ActionBioscience.org and the American Institute of Biological Sciences and we are looking forward to our continued collaborations.

If you have suggestions for projects that we should profile or other comments add them below or send them via email to bioquest@bleoit.edu.

Invitation to comment:

Have you used resources from ActionBioscience? How did you use them? How might we use issues to drive biological education? Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment.

]]> http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/actionbioscience-an-issues-approach-to-biology/feed/ 0 Where Are We? Evolution Survey http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/waw-evolution/ http://bioquest.org/blog/2009/02/waw-evolution/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:55:59 +0000 Sam Donovan http://bioquest.org/?p=323 Welcome to our first online survey. We call our surveys “Where Are We?” because they are designed to provide us all with a sense of where we stand as a community. This first survey focuses on teaching evolution. The process is simple. You respond to a series of 10 questions (it should only take about 5 [...]]]>

Where Are We? Community Profiles

Welcome to our first online survey. We call our surveys “Where Are We?” because they are designed to provide us all with a sense of where we stand as a community. This first survey focuses on teaching evolution.

The process is simple. You respond to a series of 10 questions (it should only take about 5 minutes). We will compile the data and share it back to the community for discussion. No individual data will be shared but we can all learn something in the process.

The “Where Are We? Evolution Survey” will be open until March 16th and then we will post a new survey and begin looking at the evolution data.

We hope you will join us – because it won’t work without you. Please feel free to comment on the process, suggest topics for future surveys and provide feedback in the comment space at the bottom of the page.

Where Are We? Evolution Survey
  1. BioQUEST has a long-standing commitment to both evolution education and faculty professional development. Share your thoughts and we will share back where the community stands.

    Thanks in advance for your input.

  8. 7. For each of the following pairs of community resources select the one that would help you teach evolution more effectively.
Who Are You
  1. The following demographic information will help us make sense of the survey results.

    None of your personal information will be shared.

  2. (required)
  3. (valid email required)
  6. Which of the follow are part of your regular teaching responsibility? (check all that apply)
  8. Where do you teach? (check all that apply)
  10. Would you like to receive an e-mail to alert you when we release the results of this survey.
  12. Thanks so much. Be sure to hit the submit button.
 

cforms contact form by delicious:days

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