Your videos are concise, and the lesson plans are engaging. Thank you for making these great resources for all my students.
Shape of Life offers classroom media and resources depicting the evolution of the animal kingdom on planet earth. Explore animal adaptation, animations, and behaviors along with the amazing scientists who bring their stories to life. Discover a rich selection of NGSS materials including lesson plans, readings, illustrations and activities that inspire a deeper dive into animal phyla. Shape of Life content is FREE to students and educators all over the world.
Home
Sponging it Up in October
New Virtual Classroom Resources
Nature's Innovations: Animals as Engineers
In this lesson, students investigate how, through the process of evolution, animals solve their engineering problems and how we mimic those natural solutions.
Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design - for ONLINE LEARNING
Discover the advantages of having jointed legs and an exoskeleton.
Featured Teacher
Rosanna Ayers, Director of Youth Education, The Biomimicry Institute
Posted on September 29th, 2021
Taking a good look at nature empowers students to find solutions to the social and environmental challenges we all confront daily. It surrounds us and is right under our nose. We just need to make the connection.
Find out how Rosanna helps educators make the connection for their students.
Featured Scientist
Amanda Kahn Assistant Professor, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories- San Jose State University
Posted on October 11th, 2021
Join Amanda as she shares the magnificent world of sponges and how they go to battle with the climate crisis.
Dr. Kakani Katija, Principal Engineer, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
Posted on August 17th, 2021
Where Engineering Meets Science
When Kakani asked her engineer grandfather what direction she should explore in her education, he replied, “well, civil engineering is about concrete, and that can get boring. So, aerospace seems like a good idea.”
And so began an incredible journey from championship figure skating to groundbreaking discoveries of our oceans and how much we have to learn from larvaceans. Larvaceans, our featured chordate, are a vital part of the food web. Through Dr. Kakani Katija’s research we have learned just how pervasive plastics are in our oceans.
“Really, I want to develop tools that will help science discovery explode.”
- Dr. Kakani Katija
Featured Creature
The UN-fragile Glass Sponge
Posted on September 29th, 2021
Glass sponges get their name from their spicules built from silica – glass. Sponges don’t have skeletons like ours; instead they have spicules, which are the structural components like bricks. The glass sponge’s design has intrigued engineers who want to understand how they build glass structures of such strength.
Blog
Biomimicry
Posted on August 18th, 2021
The first powered, controlled, sustained airplane flight in history, 1903 by the Wright Brothers.
Nature has inspired inventions since the first humans tried to make things. Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature to help solve design problems. Today scientists and engineers are finding inspiration from animals and plants that may surprise you.
Where Science Inspires Art Creating Wonderous Figures
Posted on July 6th, 2021
Look carefully at these images.
They almost look real. But they are actually astounding glass marine creatures created by the father and son artists/naturalists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. Every time I look at one I am awe struck by the extreme detail. How could they have done this?
News
Early Multicellular Animal
Posted on September 21st, 2021
We always wonder where and when animal life began. Now, scientists in Scotland have found microfossils in a primeval dry lake bed that might provide a clue. Those microfossils are truly ancient, dated to about one billion years ago. The fossils show two distinct types of cells, suggesting a link between unicellular organisms and multi-cellular animals.
It’s CODE RED For Our Ocean Planet
Posted on September 7th, 2021
Catastrophic wildfires, destructive floods, intensifying hurricanes, heat waves, and drought. No matter where we live, we all know that climate change is happening. More than 200 of the world’s most influential climate scientists issued the 6th IPCC (United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report in August 2021 summarizing the science on the effects of climate change happening now.