NEW LESSON PLANS!
Posted on October 11th, 2018
Carbonated Communities
This series of two lessons uses cutting-edge scientific research on the effects of climate change on communities in the intertidal. Through a combination of a dynamic presentation and several videos, students are introduced to climate change’s effects on the ocean (ocean acidification and temperature increase) and how ocean organisms are affected. Students read and interpret graphs and construct a scientific explanation based on data from this research.
This collection consists of six lesson plans designed to help students construct an explanation of the geologic time scale based on personal connections, science concepts that include Law of Superposition and index fossils and nature of science ideas. The lessons highlight a diversity of scientists and geologic sites that complement Shape of Life videos.
New Resources tell a magnificent story from 500 million years ago!
Talk about great design!
Even if you accept the notion that nature has no obligation to make sense, echinoderms are enigmas that evolved like no other animals on earth. Their curtain went up over half-a-billion years ago, along with those of all the other basic blueprints for building an animal, but they tell an entirely different evolutionary story.
Our particularly intimate relationship with molluscs is due largely to their tasty, fleshy bodies, which have been an easy meal for millions of other animals in the food web since they first emerged during the Cambrian explosion. With that kind of vulnerability, and because they couldn’t outrun predators, early molluscs came up with armor to survive. It's a fascinating story.