http://www.nabt.org/blog A Biology Teaching Community Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:20:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_901" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Alexis Miller's Human Homunculus"][/caption] Through the wonderful world of the web, I've recently gotten to know an incredible high school biology teacher - Sue Mullican. Sue teaches at Jenks High School, in Jenks, Oklahoma. We first met at the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) meeting, when she ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/03/12/sue-mullicans-biology-students/ [caption id="attachment_891" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Photo credit: Tom Denham"][/caption] I just returned from moderating a teacher workshop at the Niles District's (just out side of Chicago, Illinois) Institute Day.  Ruth Gleicher and Anne Roloff invited me to spend three hours with a group of 10 high school teachers from the two ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/03/02/wisdom-from-the-niles-high-school-district/ I am the instructor for an online course for teachers titled “Teaching Evolution”. When I surveyed these teachers this past fall about some of the most common misconceptions their students have with respect to evolution, they all chimed in – “humans come from monkeys”. This should probably not be too ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/02/18/digging-up-our-family-tree/ [caption id="attachment_858" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Spiral Theas and Chimera Cosmos"][/caption] A friend and colleague of mine, Liz Dorland and I decided to organize a Second Life Eduator's group.  We kept meeting these fabulous teachers who wanted to learn  more about the application of the virtual world to education and ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/01/29/a-different-kind-of-educators-workshop/ A post just came through the KS-Bird list about an interesting Cornell Citizen science program--especially for those in the East and SE: The Rusty Blackbird Blitz Rusty Blackbirds are in decline and Kansas is part of their winter range. This "blitz"/survey is set up for the first two weeks of Feb. ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/01/25/involve-your-students-in-a-citizen-science-project/ [caption id="attachment_850" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mole cricket tattoo"][/caption] Most of us worry about the growing list of endangered species, many of us donate time or money to groups who work to protect them, but how many of us have taken steps to promote the cause by tattooing images of extinct organisms on ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2010/01/09/now-thats-taking-extinction-seriously/ [caption id="attachment_843" align="alignright" width="320" caption="blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla"][/caption] NPR's Science Friday had a great interview with evolutionary biologist, Martin Schaefer (Associate Professor, University of Freiburg, Germany) about his current research in bird evolution. The radio segment was pitched perfectly for AP Biology -- a re-cap of Darwin's finches, genetic variation in the ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2009/12/04/birdfeeders-and-evolution-of-birds/ Mark Noble (Univesrity of Rochester, Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Institute) was the first speaker in a panel that followed the keynote (Dr. Capecchi).  Dr. Nobel talked about what is it about stem cells and sem cell research that we should include in our biology teaching.  He suggests that it ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2009/11/18/stem-cell-panel-with-mark-noble/ [caption id="attachment_830" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bruce Calhoun, Save the Rainforest"][/caption] Bruce Calhoun (President of Save the Rainforest, Inc, Las Cruces, New Mexico) gave a terrific talk on Saturday morning - Tropical Forest and the New Climate Change Agreement.  He showed some fabulous photographs of rainforest jaguars, cougars, pigmy opossums, bats, katydids, bromeliads, ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2009/11/18/tropical-rainforests/ [caption id="attachment_827" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mario Capecchi's Stem Cell Keynote Address"][/caption] It's Saturday morning in Denver - and its cold.  We went from 70 degree temperatures to 30 degrees in one day and there's a light dusting of snow. This morning started early with the Stem Cell Education Summit.  The keynote speaker, Mario Capecchi, ... http://www.nabt.org/blog/2009/11/18/stem-cell-education-summit/