Not a whole lot to post about this day . . . once again (as usual on exam days), I didn’t take any photos. Our morning was taken up with the third exam, including an exam review session. No Pictionary this time, though . . . instead, I put together a game of Jeopardy, using this awesome Powerpoint template.

Here is a sample of the questions (answers at the bottom of this post):

After the exam, we finished up with diversity, and talked about the evolution of humans. I do a fairly quick run-through of the main groups of ancestors (Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis), and the patterns of dispersal from Africa. I share with the class that 2.5% of my DNA was inherited from my Neanderthal ancestors (2.7% is the average for people of European heritage), and of course we talk about the appearance of Homo sapiens. I had to change up my powerpoint presentation this term, however, in light of some REALLY COOL fossils found in Morocco, which push the timeline back a great many years. Previously, we placed the evolution of humans about 200,000 years ago; now, that date has been pushed back to at least 300,000 years ago. SO COOL!!!!

We also watched an interactive video from HHMI: Great Transitions: the Origin of Humans. (http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/great-transitions-origin-humans). It’s about 20 minutes long, with quiz questions embedded along the way, so students are able to reinforce the most important points from the video.

We finished up today with an introductory lecture on Ecology – what it is, and a bit about why it’s important. We didn’t get far enough to do a lab activity, though, so I’ll expand on this tomorrow.

spuɐןƃ ʎɹɐɯɯɐɯ puɐ ɹnɟ (ƃ ؛ɥʇuɐɔɐןǝoɔ ǝɥʇ (ɟ ؛ǝsɹǝʌıp ssǝן (ǝ ؛suǝƃoɥʇɐd (p ؛sǝןʇɹnʇ puɐ suɐıןıpoɔoɹɔ (ɔ ؛ʞɔoɹ snoǝuƃı (q ؛sʇuɐןd ɟo sɹoʇsǝɔuɐ ǝɥʇ ǝq oʇ pǝʌǝıןǝq ǝɹɐ ǝɐƃןɐ uǝǝɹƃ (ɐ