Want to make a teacher and students a bit uncomfortable? Teach natural selection in the bible belt. I've done it every semester for years. I get few questions. This year I even threw in a few more Richard Dawkins vignettes for good measure (especially one that jabs at creationists by postulating whether his example shows a incompetent or heartless creator).
I have tried a half a dozen different natural selection simulations through the years. I found one I liked last year but it takes several hours of lab time to do. In my schedule I have one hour. So I went back to one I had done years ago. It has a nice combination of variation (mutations) and selection. Students evolve a "bird", actually a straw with two paper wings, to fly further. The problem is that each generation takes awhile to build and the students who throw the birds usually suck at it. So they only get a few generations into it and never get to a point where a significant flyer emerges. I thought about being the thrower for every group but I changed my mind. However, one group hit upon a beneficial mutation early on and got a bird that flew the width of the room. I kept it and showed my other two classes near the end of the labs.
I ran into a problem with straws. You just can't buy normal straight straws at stores anymore. They are all flexible. So if you want straight straws you got to go to a restaurant. I realized too late that I didn't grab enough from the local chevron so I had to resort to flexible ones (which worked okay btw) for my first class. Ruth, a very nice extra clean janitor who works in my building, went and got me a handful at Hardee's on Monday morning. I thought that was very sweet and thoughtful.
Although you would think that a quiz on science and selection would be simple, my students did terrible on it. I have come to expect it though. Either they think they know it or they blow it off more than usual. One surprise was two F students passing the quiz with C's. I know one went in for tutoring. I hope they keep it up.
The practice peer review went on as usual. I find it odd that some groups, although there are obvious contributors and coasters, rate each other identically. There were a few surprises out there on who is a major contributor. Two students who I hadn't expected turned out to be well respected by their groups.
Physical science is still going along. It's the class I stress about the most. Now that I am in geology, I want to do really well and I don't want to lecture too much. Unfortunately all the basics of geology require some lecture so I have gone through plate tectonics and rocks. We spent two labs going through the rocks. I did a lecture on relative dating but didn't make it all the way through. By having a weekly quiz and labs, my lecture time shrinks considerably. I have biostratigraphy to go through and then absolute dating (which I dread) before I can get them into landforms. Somehow I need to show them that you can demonstrate a really old earth without dealing with creationist shit about radiometric dating. My plan is to show them a recumbent fold in the Canadian Rockies and take them through the layers and then explain that folding requires depth and lots of time. If I can get them to understand that then there shouldn't be any stupid questions about fossil tautology or isochron dating. I got so behind in astronomy. I am running out of time. I've got to start weather in a few weeks.
Well the foundation funded my grant. So we'll be getting ceiling projectors in two classrooms in the administration building. I'm pretty happy about it. Thank goodness I went to the open forum last month and asked about it. I am going to have to thank Rene for her suggestion. This is the second time I have gotten funding. Does this count as a roll?
This week in biology is going to be pretty dull: cells and mitosis. I find it hard to spice up those topics. There is always cloning to spark interest in mitosis, but cell parts are lacking a cool factor. Maybe goblet cells making snot? I do get to pontificate on endosymbiosis though.
I was a bit shocked the other day when I walked into the library and saw that one of my lazy basketball players now works as a work-study for Susan. I made a joke about a spy in our midst. She has a test next week. Let's hope she does better on it than her previous exams. Now that she is working with Susan, I am rooting for her to pass.
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