One of my students brought this video to class for show and tell. A great discussion followed.
One of our favorite lines was; "death by potato is rare. . ."
Loons on a Lake
Friday, March 15, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Stewardship of the Environment - a perspective I hadn't thought of
Our discussion last week didn't include using de-extinction as a learning tool to use to help a threatened species. I'm including a link to a National Geographic blog post, and then the last few paragraphs of the article which looks at the feasibility of cloning a mammoth in light of learning more about the technology so it can be used to clone still living, but endangered species or perhaps just to fund raise for other preservation efforts.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/12/mammoth-deextinction/
Conservation boost
Despite these many hurdles, Schuster does not dismiss the possibility of cloning a mammoth, especially with improvements in genetic techniques. “Every time a journalist asks me about this, one of those hurdles has been taken out,” he says. “I think it’s a little irresponsible to stand there and say it’ll never happen, but that doesn’t mean we should spend money on it. Maybe it would be better spent on preserving endangered species today.”
Can we really justify trying to bring the mammoth back from extinction when all three species of living elephant are in danger of joining it? “If you’d interviewed me two or three years, ago, I would have been much more aggressive against it,” says Hildebrandt. He has changed his mind after struggling with efforts to conserve other large animals like the Sumatran rhino. Only a few hundred remain, and many are so old that no amount of assisted reproduction will help them to breed. “Our only option is to clone them,” he says.
Mammoth-cloning projects might act as an attractive funding magnet in a way that conservation projects of little-known rhinos cannot. “The mammoth may be able indirectly help future conservation projects, by developing cloning technologies that could help modern species,” says Hildebrandt. It’s a sobering thought: as impossible as cloning an extinct animal might sound, the one good reason to try is that it might prevent a number of species from suffering the same fate.
It seems that every issue I use to add interest to my classes requires me to think about issues from a new perspective and then to ask students to also think. I love connections between the curriculum and real life!
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/12/mammoth-deextinction/
Conservation boost
Despite these many hurdles, Schuster does not dismiss the possibility of cloning a mammoth, especially with improvements in genetic techniques. “Every time a journalist asks me about this, one of those hurdles has been taken out,” he says. “I think it’s a little irresponsible to stand there and say it’ll never happen, but that doesn’t mean we should spend money on it. Maybe it would be better spent on preserving endangered species today.”
Can we really justify trying to bring the mammoth back from extinction when all three species of living elephant are in danger of joining it? “If you’d interviewed me two or three years, ago, I would have been much more aggressive against it,” says Hildebrandt. He has changed his mind after struggling with efforts to conserve other large animals like the Sumatran rhino. Only a few hundred remain, and many are so old that no amount of assisted reproduction will help them to breed. “Our only option is to clone them,” he says.
Mammoth-cloning projects might act as an attractive funding magnet in a way that conservation projects of little-known rhinos cannot. “The mammoth may be able indirectly help future conservation projects, by developing cloning technologies that could help modern species,” says Hildebrandt. It’s a sobering thought: as impossible as cloning an extinct animal might sound, the one good reason to try is that it might prevent a number of species from suffering the same fate.
It seems that every issue I use to add interest to my classes requires me to think about issues from a new perspective and then to ask students to also think. I love connections between the curriculum and real life!
Thursday, March 7, 2013
How to capture a class' attention
As part of our discussion on the history of the earth’s
rocks and life forms one of my students asked me yesterday if I thought it
would really be possible to bring back dinosaurs like happens in Jurassic Park. I was delighted to find
this article, posted yesterday on the National Geographic website. I shared the
article with the class this morning, and then asked the students what they
thought.
Should we de-extinct animals?
S
“I think so only if they have plans for it like where it
would live and not disturb our life. So don’t just make a mammoth and then set
it free. Have it be controlled.”
W
“I think that if it was because of people that the animal
went extinct, then it should be our responsibility to bring them back.”
K
“Umm, I think it would be really cool to be able to do that.
But sometimes I think it would be a bad thing, like bringing a sabre-tooth
tiger or something back it would compete with today’s animals and maybe even
prey on them. But I think some animals might be good to bring back.”
K
“I think the technology is amazing. To think that this may
be a possibility, but I don’t believe it is necessary. I don’t think extinct
animals should be brought back.”
I think that the next step in this process is to share this
article:
I wonder whether they will have though more carefully about
their responses by tomorrow.
This would make a fascinating discussion if the students
have continue to have conflicting opinions and are willing to back up their
opinions with knowledge. It might even work for the Sabbath School class on environmental stewardship I've been asked to teach!
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