Darwin Day 2018: “How paramount the future is to the present, when one is surrounded by children”

February 12th is International Darwin Day.

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, or in some other capacity given responsibility over the education or raising of children, there is a lesson to be learned from the naturalist Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882).

From a 2009 issue of Natural History

Darwin was a devoted father, and in certain ways his attachment to his children was uncharacteristic for the Victorian period. Darwin and Emma married in 1842 and had ten children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. His own poor health meant that he did most of his scientific work from his home Down House: reading, observing, experimenting, corresponding, and writing. Thus, his family life and his scientific work intertwined throughout each day, and when his children were sick – which was quite often – his work would be delayed. But he also sought his children’s help, whether physically in experiments or for tossing thoughts back and forth. He included his children in the development of his ideas, and even thought of his children as scientific subjects themselves.

In the woods with Darwin (Paul Bettany) and some of his children, in a scene from the 2009 film Creation

The lack of original posts on this blog over the last couple of years is due to my raising my own children. As a parent, I appreciate the Darwin that allowed his children to pursue their interests, that introduced his children to nature and scientific subjects, and that sought to understand his own children biologically.

My son as Charles Darwin in 2017. Photo: Sammy Prugsamatz

Darwin biographer and historian James Moore referred to Down House, its grounds, and the “menagerie” of animals there as “a childhood paradise – an adventure playground, summer camp, and petting farm all rolled into one.” Darwin surely saw the value in exposing his children to nature at home and at places nearby, especially Orchis Bank (now “Downe Bank”), the patch of land that inspired the words about “an entangled bank” in his conclusion to On the Origin of Species (1859).

My children exploring at a local natural area in Portland, OR, here looking minuscule among the trees

I strive to both teach my children about evolution and to ensure their childhoods are full of plenty of time in nature. With constant challenges to evolution education in public schools and the always present yet increasing threats to the environment, there is no more important time than now to instill in our children a love for science and reason, and an appreciation for the natural world we depend on as a species. For us, and every living thing we share this planet with. Charles Darwin cared for his own family while learning about and sharing with the rest of the world about his larger family – the tree of life. We should allow our children to climb the tree of life, both metaphorically in learning about evolution and biodiversity, and in the real world through nature play.

My daughter climbing a tree in Portland, OR

In an 1852 letter to his cousin William Darwin Fox, Darwin wrote, reflecting on his duties as a father regarding their educations and whether or not they were to inherit his health problems, “How paramount the future is to the present, when one is surrounded by children.” Our future depends on having citizens that are well-informed in science and that have reasons to vote in favor of the environment. So, let us celebrate Darwin Day – and every day – by taking our kids outside and teaching them about evolution.

On a note card my mother sent me a few years ago

Resources:

Darwin Correspondence Project: Darwin and Fatherhood

Darwin Correspondence Project: Darwin’s observations on his children

Jim Endersby: “Sympathetic science: Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, and the passions of Victorian naturalists,” in the journal Victorian Studies. Endersby discusses Darwin’s role as a father in relation to his botanical work.

Tim Berra: Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy, from Oxford University Press (Amazon); “Ten facts about Charles Darwin’s ten children.”

James T. Costa: Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory, from W.W. Norton (Amazon). This book recounts Darwin’s many experiments and shows how involved his children were; also, each chapter includes activity instructions for educators.

Carolyn J. Boulter, Michael J. Reiss, and Dawn L. Sanders (eds.): Darwin-Inspired Learning, from Sense Publishers (Amazon). For educators. Particularly the seventh chapter by James Moore, “Getting the Kids Involved – Darwin’s Paternal Example.”

The Bug Chicks blog: a guest post I wrote a few years back about Darwin, nature education, and parenting.

Jonathan Tweet: Grandmother Fish (Amazon). Fantastic book introducing preschool-aged kids to evolution

Kristan Lawson: Darwin and Evolution for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities, from Chicago Review Press (Amazon)

Deborah Hopkinson: The Humbleebee Hunter: Inspired by the Life and Experiments of Charles Darwin and His Children, from Hyperion (Amazon). One of my personal favorite books about Darwin, or in this case, his children. My post about this book from 2012 is here.

Art by Jen Corace from Deborah Hopkinson’s The Humblebee Hunter

 

 

 

“Wallace and Darwin – Voyages to Evolution Map” poster available

Operation Wallacea has the poster “Wallace and Darwin – Voyages to Evolution Map” available for free for educational use:

 

To mark the 100th anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace’s death Operation Wallcea produced a poster showing the voyages of Wallace and Darwin and how they both developed the idea of evolution by natural selection. This map was produced in association with the Wallace Memorial Fund and forms part of the Wallace100 celebrations.

An email to send a request is at this link.

 

BOOK: Do Elephants Have Knees? And Other Stories of Darwinian Origins

In September of this year, the National Center for Science Education (seriously, donate to them now if you value evolution and climate change education) posted on their blog about how Stephen Jay Gould’s comparison of Darwinian evolution to Kipling’s “Just So Stories” did not sit well with many a biologist. While of course Gould’s use of the phrase is nuanced, and refers to views some biologists have compared to others regarding how evolution happened, the phrase is a favorite trope of creationists.

A new book uses the idea of “Just So Stories” and children’s stories in general to show how evolution can be better understood.

Charles R. Ault Jr., Do Elephants Have Knees? And Other Stories of Darwinian Origins (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), 240 pp.

Publisher’s description Thinking whimsically makes serious science accessible. That’s a message that should be taken to heart by all readers who want to learn about evolution. Do Elephants Have Knees? invites readers into serious appreciation of Darwinian histories by deploying the playful thinking found in children’s books. Charles R. Ault Jr. weds children’s literature to recent research in paleontology and evolutionary biology. Inquiring into the origin of origins stories, Ault presents three portraits of Charles Darwin—curious child, twentysomething adventurer, and elderly worm scientist. Essays focusing on the origins of tetrapods, elephants, whales, and birds explain fundamental Darwinian concepts (natural selection, for example) with examples of fossil history and comparative anatomy. The imagery of the children’s story offers a way to remember and recreate scientific discoveries. By juxtaposing Darwin’s science with tales for children, Do Elephants Have Knees? underscores the importance of whimsical storytelling to the accomplishment of serious thinking. Charles Darwin mused about duck beaks and swimming bears as he imagined a pathway for the origin of baleen. A “bearduck” chimera may be a stretch, but the science linking not just cows but also whales to moose through shared ancestry has great merit. Teaching about shared ancestry may begin with attention to Bernard Wiseman’s Morris the Moose. Morris believes that cows and deer are fine examples of moose because they all have four legs and things on their heads. No whale antlers are known, but fossils of four-legged whales are. By calling attention to surprising and serendipitous echoes between children’s stories and challenging science, Ault demonstrates how playful thinking opens the doors to an understanding of evolutionary thought.

Purchase Do Elephants Have Knees? And Other Stories of Darwinian Origins through the publisher or the independent Powell’s City of Books. The author, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, will discuss his book at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne on November 28 at 7:30pm.

 

BOOK: Evolutionary Tales

Here’s yet another book for kids about evolution:

Matt Cubberly, Evolutionary Tales (The WilderWay, 2015), 24 pp. Illustrated by May Villani.

Publisher’s description Evolutionary Tales is a children’s book that teaches evolution through 10 poems focusing on the wildest-evolved creatures of our world! Our world is full of absolutely amazing creatures that have evolved and adapted to become truly incredible! And because our world is so diverse, Evolutionary Tales isn’t just one story! Instead, the book is a compilation of TEN wildly-different stories – each focusing on one fantastic creature! Each story is told in the form of a long poem, and each takes you into a specific niche. Kids love the close-up look into the tiny worlds all around them as they learn how the animals evolved to fill those roles. Some are quite funny – like a fish walking on land! And some are a bit scary – like the toothy angler fish down in the dark depths of the ocean! But whether you’re put into the sky, into the water, or out onto the land, you and your child will no doubt have an amazing adventure while reading AND learning!

While 9 of the 10 animals depicted are not species one would encounter in everyday life, one is: the Pileated Woodpecker, which we see every once and a while while exploring in our local forested natural areas in Portland.

Here’s a video about the book:

Purchase Evolutionary Tales through the publisher.

Children’s evolution book Grandmother Fish available again

Last year I wrote about a new children’s evolution book, the self-published Grandmother Fish. Well, this awesome book has evolved into a second edition under a major publisher. You can check your local bookstore (request that they stock it even!) or order from Amazon.com.

My kids reading Grandmother Fish in Fall 2015

 

VIDEO: 12 Days of Evolution from It’s Okay To Be Smart

I’ll update with each new video!

BOOK REVIEW: Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of Evolution

My kids reading Grandmother Fish while a young Darwin (portrait by natural history artist Diana Sudyka) looks on.

UPDATE (1/13/16): Grandmother Fish has been picked up by a major publisher, and the second edition will be available in Fall 2016. You can pre-order it now on Amazon!

Most kid’s books about evolution are geared toward upper elementary ages and above. Relating the concept of the inter-relatedness of life on earth to even younger children can be a difficult task. Millions of years, common descent, phylogenetics – these are not necessarily ideas that a four-year-old can grasp. A new book seeks to teach preschool age kids about evolution, and succeeds at distilling some big ideas into an approachable and easy-to-understand story.

Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of Evolution (website), by Jonathan Tweet and charmingly illustrated by Karen Lewis, likens thinking of evolutionary history as learning about one’s familial ancestors. This is a concept that preschool age kids can possibly understand (when my son was four-and-a-half, he said to me upon thinking about how we have evolved from fish: “I eat fish, but I don’t eat my grandpas”). Children will meet the book’s namesake, Grandmother Fish, but also, getting closer and closer to the present, Grandmother Reptile, Grandmother Mammal, Grandmother Ape, and Grandmother Human. Deep time is shown as orders of “a long time ago” rather than millions of years. And while the Grandmothers are the focus, the images throughout show cousins, too – lineages of animals that descended from our shared ancestor. To make the book more fun for little ones, each Grandmother has physical or behavioral traits that readers can mimic – and are asked to. Grandmother Fish wiggles and chomps while Grandmother Mammal squeaks and cuddles. These traits aren’t simply random actions – they make sense at those evolutionary stages.

Following the story is a kid-friendly evolutionary family tree (showing where all the Grandmothers fit in the bigger picture of life), a note to parents and other readers, some advice on explaining evolution concepts, more detail about each Grandmother and their specific traits, and a list of common misconceptions about evolution.

Grandmother Fish is fun, visually appealing, and above all, scientifically accurate. And here’s a good sign that Grandmother Fish is a great tool for educating young minds: the National Center for Science Education loves it* and the creationist organization Answers in Genesis hates it.** With the recent news that more and more younger people are accepting evolution, it’s even more encouraging to see great materials for evolution education.

Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of Evolution (website) started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2014, and was successfully funded. While the book was made available recently, all copies the author sent to Amazon have sold out as well as those through his website (thanks to a positive review on an NPR blog that was shared on their Facebook page). He plans to put out a second edition, and interested folks can sign up to be updated about that progress – in fact, you can pre-order a copy here. Until then a PDF of the book can be downloaded!

* Stephanie Keep of the NCSE wrote that it is “heads and shoulders above any evolution book for children that I’ve ever seen.”

** Georgia Purdom of AiG calls the book deceptive and suggests that parents request their libraries purchase a creationist book for kids that states dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.

HMS Beagle to set sail for LEGO – only with your help!

Luis Peña has designed a LEGO set for HMS Beagle, complete with Charles Darwin and Captain Fitzroy minifigs, among others. He posted it to the LEGO Ideas website, in which set suggestions receive support and if they reach 10,000 supporters within a year of being posted, LEGO will consider making the set a reality.

I supported this set, and hope you will too. It’s necessary to create an account on the site in order to cast your support, but it’s quick and easy, and worth it, don’t you think?

Here are some images from Luis:

BOOK: Darwin-Inspired Learning

A new book of interest, and not just because a friend of mine has a chapter in it (Karen James):

Carolyn J. Boulter, Michael J. Reiss, and Dawn L. Sanders, eds. Darwin-Inspired Learning (Boston, MA: Sense Publishers, 2014), 450 pp.

Publisher’s description Charles Darwin has been extensively analysed and written about as a scientist, Victorian, father and husband. However, this is the first book to present a carefully thought out pedagogical approach to learning that is centered on Darwin’s life and scientific practice. The ways in which Darwin developed his scientific ideas, and their far reaching effects, continue to challenge and provoke contemporary teachers and learners, inspiring them to consider both how scientists work and how individual humans ‘read nature’. Darwin-inspired learning, as proposed in this international collection of essays, is an enquiry-based pedagogy, that takes the professional practice of Charles Darwin as its source. Without seeking to idealise the man, Darwin-inspired learning places importance on: • active learning • hands-on enquiry • critical thinking • creativity • argumentation • interdisciplinarity. In an increasingly urbanised world, first-hand observations of living plants and animals are becoming rarer. Indeed, some commentators suggest that such encounters are under threat and children are living in a time of ‘nature-deficit’. Darwin-inspired learning, with its focus on close observation and hands-on enquiry, seeks to re-engage children and young people with the living world through critical and creative thinking modeled on Darwin’s life and science.

The publisher has made freely available the introduction and first two chapters, here.

Children at Nature Play – my t-shirt fundraising campaign

Some of you may know that I also blog at Exploring Portland’s Natural Areas. I get my two kids outside and exploring in nature as much as possible, and love to share information for other parents, mentors, and educators.

Right now I have a Teespring t-shirt fundraising campaign to raise funds to order and then sell signs with my Children at Nature Play design (David Orr was my graphic designer). The t-shirts for sale have the same design!

To learn more about this project of mine, check out this blog post.

To order a t-shirt (or more!), click here.

Even better, share the Teespring link with anyone you think might be interested.

Thank you!

BOOK REVIEW: Darwin’s Wild Pursuits Around Downe

Ewa Prokop, Darwin’s Wild Pursuits Around Downe (Nottingham, UK: JMD Media Ltd., 2014), 64 pp. Illustrated by Diana Catchpole.

Ewa Prokop, who previously published a book about her time studying the English landscapes that Darwin was very close to (in Shropshire for his youth and in Downe for married life until his death), has written a book for children that uses Darwin’s studies of flora and fauna around the village of Downe as a means to teach about evolution by natural selection. In Darwin’s Wild Pursuits Around Downe, she does this through fourteen short stories placing Darwin in conversation with various wildlife in the countryside surrounding his home of four decades, Down House. For an article on a UK website, Prokop said, “People often focus on the exotic species Darwin discovered when on his Beagle voyage, but I wanted to highlight the amazing range of wildlife that could, and can still, be found in south-east England in an area Darwin knew well and studied intensively.” Prokop dedicated this new book “To those who strive to teach children about British wildlife.” Many current advocates for connecting children to nature stress that children should learn more about the animals that live where they live, part of their home. Naturalist Robert Michael Pyle is known for asking, “What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never seen a wren?”

Illustrations of a wren and her nest and a curious boy by Diana Catchpole

Coincidentally, one of the fourteen animals that converse with Darwin is a wren. In “Darwin & the Wren,” we find the naturalist exploring in a meadow behind Down House. He ponders the opening and closing of leaflets of plants in response to the intensity of the sun, and references research by Batalin (such observations are noted in Darwin’s 1880 book, The Power of Movement in Plants, where he cites the Russian plant physiologist Alexander Theodorowicz Batalin). Then, seeing from where a wren flew out of some bushes, he peeks in to discover its nest, with three eggs. The words exchanged between Darwin and the wren concern his interest in her colors and ability to camouflage and her distress over his having made her nest of notice to possible egg thieves. Darwin later brings a young boy to see the nest, much to the wren’s dismay, and he learns a lesson from the mother bird: not to collect her eggs!

What I like about this story with the wren is that it brings in actual observations Darwin made in Downe, and like he was with his own children, it shows how Darwin instilled a sense of wonder in nature with youth around him. Through all the stories, we see Darwin himself change, from a balding yet non-bearded younger man (and young father) to the sage of Down House, the classic image of Darwin as an old, wise, and classically Victorian-bearded gentleman. Yet in all the stories, he remains curious and active, constantly asking questions and exploring around his village. His observations and experiments discussed in these stories all matter in some sense to his larger project: evolution by natural selection. They show his thinking process concerning topics as varied as:

– cross-pollination in plants; a fox named Vulpes discusses with Darwin the forms of primroses and cowslips (The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, 1877)

Illustration of an inquisitive fox by Diana Catchpole

– struggle for existence; a field mouse informs Darwin how the existence of predatory mammals such as cats, via a food chain through field mice and bumble bees, might determine the growth of red clover (On the Origin of Species, 1859, chapter 3)

Illustration of Darwin and a field mouse by Diana Catchpole

– adaptation; a lizard named Lacerta discusses with Darwin the insectivorous sundew plant Drosera, showing how environmental conditions can lead to new adaptations in organisms (Insectivorous Plants, 1875)

Illustration of Darwin studying Drosera by Diana Catchpole

– and geographical distribution; a duck named Anas helps Darwin to understand how organisms can carry seeds and assist in propagating other species in new areas (On the Origin of Species, 1859, chapter 7)

Illustration of Darwin and a duck by Diana Catchpole

Ten more talkative animals (including the wren, and many named by their genus name) and ten more topics of import to Darwin’s life-long pursuit of understanding the origin of new species (all based on actual observations and experiments conducted by Darwin), along with Diana Catchpole’s charming illustrations, make up the rest of Darwin’s Wild Pursuits Around Downe. There is a lot to like about this little book, from the presentation of Darwin as a naturalist and mentor to youth and details of his research, to the likeable countryside critters and importance placed on exploring in local nature.

Prokop wrote Darwin’s Wild Pursuits Around Downe for children ages 9-11, and has provided much more material on her website Mad About Charles Darwin about the stories and resources for teachers (in the UK specifically, but I don’t see why teachers elsewhere couldn’t benefit from her efforts to teach more kids about nature and Charles Darwin). Facts regarding each story – when it takes place, Darwin’s actual research, etc. – are shared in The Truth Behind the Fiction (PDF), and evolution curriculum resources for teachers are listed by story here.

BOOK: Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye

Bill Nye speaks at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, October 25, 2014                       (Photo: Lewis & Clark College)

Last month, my wife and son were fortunate to see Bill Nye the Science Guy give a talk at Lewis & Clark College here in Portland, OR. This was exciting for my wife, having watched many episodes of his show growing up, and great for my son to hear from one of our leading advocates for science. His talk was wide ranging, from his own life story to climate change and his experience debating creationist Ken Ham last February.

That debate led Bill Nye to write a book all about evolution:

Bill Nye, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014), 320 pp.

Publisher’s description Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a London subway; takes a stroll through 4.5 billion years of time; and explores the new search for alien life, including aliens right here on Earth. With infectious enthusiasm, Bill Nye shows that evolution is much more than a rebuttal to creationism; it is an essential way to understand how nature works—and to change the world. It might also help you get a date on a Saturday night.

I look forward to the copy of Undeniable that is on its way to me now! You can find the book through various vendors from the publisher’s page, here.

In the meantime, check out this post on Brain Pickings: Bill Nye Reads a Brilliant, Creationism-Busting Passage from His New Book on Evolution

Kickstarter campaign: Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of Evolution

Although this Kickstarter campaign reached it’s funding goal two days after starting on June 23, it’s still on and you can donate to the effort to publish a book about evolution for preschoolers, Grandmother Fish: a child’s first book of Evolution by Jonathan Tweet and illustrated by Karen Lewis. The really great thing about it is that Eric Meikle from the NCSE is advising on the contents of the book, so it will be very accurate with the science.

Check out the video about the Kickstarter campaign:

Donate, and like the Grandmother Fish Facebook page!

BOOK REVIEW: Plesiosaur Peril

About a year ago I posted about two children’s books that combine interesting stories, beautiful illustrations, and factual information about dinosaurs and other extinct animals: Ankylosaur Attack and Pterosaur Trouble. Moving on to another group of extinct reptile, Daniel Loxton rounds out this trilogy in the Tales of Prehistoric Life series: Plesiosaur Peril (Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press, 2014, 32 pp.).

Again combining beautiful digital illustrations with landscape photography (or should I say, seascape photography) by Loxton and Jim W.W. Smith, this book recounts the “day in the life” of a family of ocean-dwelling Cryptoclidus as they evade the hungry jaws of a much larger plesiosaur, Liopleurodon. Young readers will enjoy the action, while parents will appreciate the theme of family bonds. Educators will enjoy the current paleontological information (paleontologist Darren Naish was a consultant, and he posted on his blog a lot of information about plesiosaurs and the process of working on the book), while everyone will enjoy the beautiful rendering of plesiosaurs, ammonites, ichthyosaurs, and belemnites (squid-like creatures). This trilogy is perfect for science-minded kids, and would be great set of books to have on elementary school library shelves.

 

KickStarter campaign for children’s book “Great Adaptations”

Evolutionary biologist Tiffany Taylor (see here) is working with a a group of artists to illustrate ten short stories in rhyme that “explain the evolutionary advantages of some of the natural world’s unusual traits in child-friendly terms.” And Taylor has teamed up with a scientist for each story to ensure science accuracy.

For Great Adaptations, she has raised over $20,000 of their $25,000 goal, with 15 days to go. Click here to read much more, watch a video, and donate!

Darwin Day 2014 in Portland, OR

Darwin Day is fast approaching – just under three weeks until February 12, 2014. You can see on the Darwin Day website if there are to be any events in your area.

I see nothing listed yet for Oregon, but I know of a few things (let me know of any others!):

CANCELED DUE TO BAD WEATHER IN PORTLAND February 9, 10am – Humanists of Greater Portland: Darwin’s Birthday Potluck

Laurent Beauregard will give a short presentation about Darwin and his work. This will be followed by time for socializing and food. (this is through a Meetup group)

February 12, 7:30-9pm – PSU’s Biology Investigation & Outreach Presents Darwin Day Lecture With Dr. Patricia Brennan

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Patricia Brennan will be joining us to present a talk about the importance of basic science research. Slate.com recently published an article by Dr. Brennan wherein she explained how her research, focused on the evolution of waterfowl genetalia is important for understanding a whole range of evolutionary questions. Please join us for cake and coffee immediately following the lecture.

February 20, 6:30pm – Secular Humanists of East Portland: Origin of Species: Movie and Discussion Night – Pot Luck

The richness and diversity of life raises two of the most profound questions in biology: How do new species form? And, why are there so many species? Our planet has millions of species, including thousands of mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles, and even more butterflies, beetles, and other animals, each adapted to one of an enormous variety of habitats. The Origin of Species series tells the stories of the intrepid naturalists who have traveled the world, from the famed Galápagos Islands to the Malay Archipelago, in search of evidence and answers. This three part presentation is an hour total, so there will be plenty of time to socialize and for discussion. Uniquely, this documentary shows the contributions of Darwin and Wallace almost equally. Also, parts II and III are only about 15 min. long each and present how biologists have demonstrated natural selection and evolution (the change in gene frequency in a population) in the field with Darwin’s finches and anole lizards, thus showing how we know natural selection and evolution are true. You’ll learn some new biology in a short, very understandable format like you were enrolled in a university biology graduate program! Join us for a time of sharing, the movie, discussion to follow, friendship and sharing food. (this is through a Meetup group)

The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Eugene is also holding some Darwin Day talks:

HHMI DVDs about evolution, DNA, and dinosaur extinction

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is known for offering to educators free DVDs and other resources about various biology and health topics, such as human evolution, disease, biodiversity and medicines, stem cells, and cloning. They are now offering three new DVDs: The Origin of Species, The Double Helix, and The Day the Mesozoic Died. The Origin of Species consists of three separate videos telling the story of Darwin, Wallace, and evolution and action. The Double Helix covers the history of the discovery of the structure of DNA, and thankfully does not leave out Rosalind Franklin. My son has already watched the one on dinosaur extinction, and at 7 years old, was fully engrossed in the narrative.

If you are a teacher or educator in some other capacity, or perhaps run a discussion group, these are great resources to have. The ordering page is here (select “DVD” on the left to narrow down the selections).

BOOK: Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons

Sara Levine, Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Group, 2013), 32 pp. Illustrated by T.S Spookytooth.

What animal would you be if your finger bones grew so long that they reached your feet? Or what if you had no leg bones but kept your arm bones? This picture book will keep you guessing as you read about how human skeletons are like—and unlike—those of other animals.

Although this book does not discuss evolutionary relationships (homology, common descent), it is a fun introduction to comparative anatomy for elementary students!

Evolution to the masses!

Three posts I’ve seen recently that may be of interest to readers here:

Popperfont: Announcing the “Voyage of the Beagle” trading card game. Plus a call for some crowdsourced goodness!

Slate: Bone by Bone: The picture book that will show your kid how evolution works

Why Evolution Is True: New comic about evolution and natural selection

BOOK: Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools

A new book about the Scopes Trail in 1920s America was recently published:

Adam R. Shapiro, Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 200 pp.

In Trying Biology, Adam R. Shapiro convincingly dispels many conventional assumptions about the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial. Most view it as an event driven primarily by a conflict between science and religion. Countering this, Shapiro shows the importance of timing: the Scopes trial occurred at a crucial moment in the history of biology textbook publishing, education reform in Tennessee, and progressive school reform across the country. He places the trial in this broad context—alongside American Protestant antievolution sentiment—and in doing so sheds new light on the trial and the historical relationship of science and religion in America.

For the first time we see how religious objections to evolution became a prevailing concern to the American textbook industry even before the Scopes trial began. Shapiro explores both the development of biology textbooks leading up to the trial and the ways in which the textbook industry created new books and presented them as “responses” to the trial. Today, the controversy continues over textbook warning labels, making Shapiro’s study—particularly as it plays out in one of America’s most famous trials—an original contribution to a timely discussion.

A review in Times Higher Education by Simon Underdown, here.

Shapiro started a blog to accompany this book, here.

Subscription service for new evolution toys: would you sign up?

Palm Kids is seeking interest for a subscription for a new series of evolution toys. Working on this is biologist Kate Miller, who designed and sold the Charlie’s Playhouse Giant Evolution Timeline, which we’re very fond of. The new toys are 2-in-1 Evolvems, critters that evolve into another by reversing them – a transitional plush! Here’s a bunch of info regarding the new toys, and be sure to click on the image if you’re interested. There would be a free first shipment, and then a monthly shipment that you’d pay for, which can be cancelled at any time. I think it’s a great idea for introducing evolution and paleontology to children and keeping it fresh and exciting.

Updates will be posted at Evolution for Kids!

Karen James on Charles Darwin and the Beagle Project

The Beagle Project, go support it!

And if you are on Twitter, give @kejames a follow!

VIDEOS: What is Evolution? and What is Natural Selection?

Great videos for a refresher on some important biology, from Stated Clearly with illustrations from Bird and Moon:

VIDEO: Trickle down science denial, from evolution to climate change

From the National Center for Science Education:

BOOK: Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions about Evolution

Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions about Evolution, by Francisco Ayala (Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 83 pp.

Despite the ongoing cultural controversy in America, evolution remains a cornerstone of science. In this book, Francisco J. Ayala—an evolutionary biologist, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and winner of the National Medal of Science and the Templeton Prize—cuts to the chase in a daring attempt to address, in nontechnical language, six perennial questions about evolution:

• Am I a Monkey?• Why Is Evolution a Theory?• What Is DNA?• Do All Scientists Accept Evolution?• How Did Life Begin?• Can One Believe in Evolution and God?

This to-the-point book answers each of these questions with force. Ayala’s occasionally biting essays refuse to lend credence to disingenuous ideas and arguments. He lays out the basic science that underlies evolutionary theory, explains how the process works, and soundly makes the case for why evolution is not a threat to religion.

Brief, incisive, topical, authoritative, Am I a Monkey? will take you a day to read and a lifetime to ponder.

The National Center for Science Education has a free preview of Am I a Monkey?, here.