Education Resources
Here you can find lessons I gave as a high school ecology teacher, resources I developed while working as a summer camp instructor for elementary school students, and public programs I gave at the Shelby Bottom Nature Center.
"Controversial" Science
There is a problem inherent in "teaching scientific controversies," the people pushing for it have no understanding of the actual scientific purpose. Long before climate change or evolution were put before the public as true they were tested; not by one scientist but by many, not by scientists who all wanted to prove it was true but also by those who wanted to prove it false. All papers that are published in peer reviewed journals are just that, reviewed by other scientists in the field who were not involved in the research to ensure that the way the research was done is sound.
New "theories" are debated and tested over and over, but in science these new ideas are NOT theories - they are hypothesis. Only after a hypothesis has been tested again and again, with data always supporting it and never proving it wrong, does it become a theory. There may be continuing debates over the minutia (will climate change become irreversible if we reach 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere or is 350ppm too late? Maybe we can still reverse it at 410ppm etc) but NOT over the theory itself. Climate change is real, it is happening, and the changes will be dire - paying people to overblow arguments about small details to try and confuse the public about the big picture is wrong.
Sadly, climate change has become political and you can draw your own conclusion as to why (though, this is worth a look http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/29/454853/senators-who-voted-to-protect-oil-tax-breaks-received-23582500-from-big-oil/?mobile=nc ). No matter your political ideologies there is one simple fact - climate change is real and we are running out of time to fix it. I am a young woman and am not yet ready to have children of my own, but I want very much to be a mother someday. One of my greatest fears is this - when our children and grandchildren look back at this time, at our petty squabbles and refusal to act in spite of the evidence, they will hate us, and they will be right to. Think long and hard about the choices you make and the effects they have, and consider what kind of world you are forcing your children to inherit. As companies fight to keep us stuck in a system that pads their bottom lines while condemning us all, remember - we can force changes in thinking and purchasing that give rise to new industries; industries that provide jobs and strengthen our economy and security without harming the planet, or we can passively allow our children and grandchildren to be left with a planet nothing like the one we were born on. Think back to your childhood, the summers and winters, and compare them to now. I am only 26, but already the difference is clear - the winters of my adulthood are nothing like those I remember as a child and teen. Will our children be able to go sledding? Will they get to make snowmen larger than themselves? Will they even know what a "snow day" is? Will any of the winter Calvin & Hobbes cartoons make sense to them? (Yes, I own those books and fully intend to read that cartoon with my children). How many of the animals you begged to go see at the zoo or marveled at in books and on TV as a child will still exist for your children and grandchildren to see?
For a long time people refused to believe in extinction - they thought that God's creations could not be killed off by man, surely there must be more of them out there... somewhere. Now we know this isn't true, extinction is real, but for many species the realization of that self-evident truth came too late... and many more are condemned by our refusal to change the way we conduct ourselves on this planet. A long time ago Arthur Schopenhauer said "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." For climate change and evolution many people are still in that second stage, but as a society and as a species we can no longer accept that. We must move on to the third if we are to save ourselves. The dangers of doubting climate change are clear, but acknowledging evolution is just as important.
As long as our students are deliberately mislead into doubting the scientific process we will never be able to compete with the rest of the world in the most important industries: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). We will be forced to import even more as the rest of the world develops the technologies we will need as fossil fuels run dry (and independent research into our coal and gas reserves puts that end date much sooner than the number given in commercials funded by the fossil fuel industries). We will never find the cure to Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, Cancer, and thousands of other conditions if we continue to allow our children to be taught to doubt basic scientific truths. When children have no respect for science, and even worse don't understand it, why would they choose to spend years studying to be doctors? Why become a research scientists? Why devote countless hours to the lab in hopes of finding a breakthrough if you don't believe in the very process that is necessary to find those breakthroughs? How will we combat diseases without understanding evolution? They evolve, rapidly, whether people believe it is possible for species to evolve or not.
Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant and the drugs that once cured our infections in a single course are now as effective as a sugar pill. Acknowledging evolution and studying how it works in real situations is key to protecting our own health - and this has already been proven. Cholera outbreaks once decimated villages, but by studying the pathogen scientists were able to force it to evolve into a less harmful strain. The goal of almost every pathogen is to multiply as much as possible and infect as many new hosts as possible - one of the main the differences between those that kill us and those that annoy us is how they are spread. Cholera can spread through the water, or it can pass person to person. When it is allowed to spread through water it does not matter if the person drops dead quickly - the pathogen still gets to infect new hosts. When, however, that option is removed it must pass directly from person to person - and that means the sick "host" must be well enough to move around infecting people. When the water supply in villages was cleaned up the Cholera strains evolved very quickly and the once devastating and deadly infections were gone, replaced by infections like the common cold - annoying, but not deadly except to the most susceptible.
New "theories" are debated and tested over and over, but in science these new ideas are NOT theories - they are hypothesis. Only after a hypothesis has been tested again and again, with data always supporting it and never proving it wrong, does it become a theory. There may be continuing debates over the minutia (will climate change become irreversible if we reach 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere or is 350ppm too late? Maybe we can still reverse it at 410ppm etc) but NOT over the theory itself. Climate change is real, it is happening, and the changes will be dire - paying people to overblow arguments about small details to try and confuse the public about the big picture is wrong.
Sadly, climate change has become political and you can draw your own conclusion as to why (though, this is worth a look http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/29/454853/senators-who-voted-to-protect-oil-tax-breaks-received-23582500-from-big-oil/?mobile=nc ). No matter your political ideologies there is one simple fact - climate change is real and we are running out of time to fix it. I am a young woman and am not yet ready to have children of my own, but I want very much to be a mother someday. One of my greatest fears is this - when our children and grandchildren look back at this time, at our petty squabbles and refusal to act in spite of the evidence, they will hate us, and they will be right to. Think long and hard about the choices you make and the effects they have, and consider what kind of world you are forcing your children to inherit. As companies fight to keep us stuck in a system that pads their bottom lines while condemning us all, remember - we can force changes in thinking and purchasing that give rise to new industries; industries that provide jobs and strengthen our economy and security without harming the planet, or we can passively allow our children and grandchildren to be left with a planet nothing like the one we were born on. Think back to your childhood, the summers and winters, and compare them to now. I am only 26, but already the difference is clear - the winters of my adulthood are nothing like those I remember as a child and teen. Will our children be able to go sledding? Will they get to make snowmen larger than themselves? Will they even know what a "snow day" is? Will any of the winter Calvin & Hobbes cartoons make sense to them? (Yes, I own those books and fully intend to read that cartoon with my children). How many of the animals you begged to go see at the zoo or marveled at in books and on TV as a child will still exist for your children and grandchildren to see?
For a long time people refused to believe in extinction - they thought that God's creations could not be killed off by man, surely there must be more of them out there... somewhere. Now we know this isn't true, extinction is real, but for many species the realization of that self-evident truth came too late... and many more are condemned by our refusal to change the way we conduct ourselves on this planet. A long time ago Arthur Schopenhauer said "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." For climate change and evolution many people are still in that second stage, but as a society and as a species we can no longer accept that. We must move on to the third if we are to save ourselves. The dangers of doubting climate change are clear, but acknowledging evolution is just as important.
As long as our students are deliberately mislead into doubting the scientific process we will never be able to compete with the rest of the world in the most important industries: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). We will be forced to import even more as the rest of the world develops the technologies we will need as fossil fuels run dry (and independent research into our coal and gas reserves puts that end date much sooner than the number given in commercials funded by the fossil fuel industries). We will never find the cure to Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, Cancer, and thousands of other conditions if we continue to allow our children to be taught to doubt basic scientific truths. When children have no respect for science, and even worse don't understand it, why would they choose to spend years studying to be doctors? Why become a research scientists? Why devote countless hours to the lab in hopes of finding a breakthrough if you don't believe in the very process that is necessary to find those breakthroughs? How will we combat diseases without understanding evolution? They evolve, rapidly, whether people believe it is possible for species to evolve or not.
Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant and the drugs that once cured our infections in a single course are now as effective as a sugar pill. Acknowledging evolution and studying how it works in real situations is key to protecting our own health - and this has already been proven. Cholera outbreaks once decimated villages, but by studying the pathogen scientists were able to force it to evolve into a less harmful strain. The goal of almost every pathogen is to multiply as much as possible and infect as many new hosts as possible - one of the main the differences between those that kill us and those that annoy us is how they are spread. Cholera can spread through the water, or it can pass person to person. When it is allowed to spread through water it does not matter if the person drops dead quickly - the pathogen still gets to infect new hosts. When, however, that option is removed it must pass directly from person to person - and that means the sick "host" must be well enough to move around infecting people. When the water supply in villages was cleaned up the Cholera strains evolved very quickly and the once devastating and deadly infections were gone, replaced by infections like the common cold - annoying, but not deadly except to the most susceptible.