Category: ongoing learning

Science Stories, by Teens

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During a recent visit to the Field Museum in Chicago, IL, I was delighted to find an exhibit showcasing a museum program that offers opportunities for teens to tell stories about science through video!

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Reminds me of something I was recently told: if you ask students to explain something in the form of a video (rather than in writing or via multiple choice test), you are likely to get much richer explanations, deeper inquiry and more insight into their thought processes.  Great to see opportunities like this are available and going well. Wish I had had experiences like this as a kid!

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What the appendix does, where cows came from and more—The Wild Life of Our Bodies

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Wild Life of Our Bodies, coverThe moment that made us human in that series of happenings was not the language, the gods, or even the ability to draw Rubenesque women in stone. It was when we decided that when a leopard stalked the cave, we ought to go after it and kill it. When we decided to kill a species not for food or in self-defense, but instead in order to control what lived and what did not live around us, when we did that we were then fully human. From The Wild Life of Our Bodies.

Listening to a recent Science Friday interview with Dr. Rob Dunn, I was enthralled by the discussion of who we share our homes and bodies with on a microscopic level. Yearning to find out more about the variety of relationships we have with other organisms, I got a copy of Dr. Dunn’s book The Wild Life of Our Bodies which is a fascinating collection of stories about the organisms that make us who we are and how they and we have changed each other over time. Continue reading →

Pollution isn’t just something we put into the world

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Breasts_front_cover_web Breast-feeding is an ecological act, connecting our bodies to the world in a complex web of give-and-take. The permeability of breasts allowed us to make great advances. Their estrogen sensitivity allows us

to reach puberty at optimal times. When our ancestors migrated and settled in river and costal areas, omega-3–rich diets turned their breast milk into gold, and our brains grew. We recruited, harvested, and bred specialized bacteria for our milk; we collected molecules from the world and from our bodies to manufacture novel sugar and fats to protect our babies. Our special low-protein milk kept us growing slowly, so we could have the longest childhoods on earth and learn everything we could.

Our brains grew so well that eventually we learned how to change the world’s ecology. We couldn’t possibly have guessed that we were changing our breast milk as well. Our nouveau crème no longer serves us as well as it once did. Ironically and tragically, breast milk once propelled our evolution, now it may be impeding it by conveying toxins and quite possibly contributing to infertility and brain and body impairments. For many decades, the formula companies have tried to mimic breast milk, but it is breast milk that now may be approximating formula. That is decidedly depressing.—Florence Williams, Breasts.