Category: Science Education

Biology Field Trip

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Here are some photos from a field trip that I took back in April to the Fairfield-Osborn Preserve in Rohnert Park, a nature preserve that is owned and maintained by SSU. It was a field trip for my Diversity, Structure and Function class, a class which gave a systematic overview of the whole range of life on Earth, from bacteria through plants and animals. I love this class! 🙂

For our field trip, we just went out to the preserve and tried to identify as many different organisms as we could, armed with all the knowledge we’d (hopefully) gained during the course of the semester. Here are a few of my favorite things that we saw that day:

Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)

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Spring Break Fun!

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

We’ve been on Spring Break this past week (later than just about everyone else, it seems), and the Bio Club at school (of which I am a member) had some fun activities planned. We went on two of them – a trip to a wild animal park called Safari West, and tidepooling at Pinnacle Gulch, near Bodega Bay. I also did a couple of other local things – I did some honest-to-goodness scientific research, counting pollinators on a species of wildflower that grows only at vernal pools, and I fed the animals at the wildlife rescue. Here are some photos from the two most photogenic adventures:

We went to Safari West on Wednesday, and it was a great day. I took a bunch of photos, and it was nice to have the camera out. It had been a while since I’d done any photography, what with being so busy with school.

At the park, we were given a walking tour, and then a two-hour tour on the safari truck, where we drove through the park, which has been arranged to have the animals in as natural a habitat as possible, and the truck goes into the “enclosures” (some of which are several acres large). It was a really cool place, and best of all we got in for free, because the woman who gave us our tour is a member of the Bio Club.

Here are a few of my favorite photos taken at the park:

A ring-tailed Lemur (pregnant, maybe?):

Ring-tailed Lemur

A whistling duck – these guys were so cute, all of us loved them:

Whistling Duck

Cheetah (and no, we didn’t go in this enclosure):

Cheetah

East African Crowned Cranes:

East African Crowned Cranes

Cape Buffalo:

Cape Buffalo

White Rhinoceros:

White Rhinoceros

Chapman’s Zebra:

Chapman's Zebra

Not sure what these are, but they’re pretty:

On Thursday, a bunch of us went tidepooling at a really pretty little secluded beach just south of Bodega Bay. We had to walk a half-mile to get there along a poison oak-infested trail (and of course, it was harder work going back up on the way back to the car at the end of the day), but it was totally worth it. It was a great beach, and we got there about half an hour before low tide, so we had plenty of time to explore the pools, looking for invertebrates. Here are a few photos taken at Pinnacle Gulch:

Pinnacle Gulch

Sea Star (although I still think of them as Starfish):

Sea Star

My son and Kate from Bio Club:

Connor and K8

Anemone:

Anemone

Bat Star:

Bat Star

Kate and a big crab:

K8 and a Crab

Robert Bakker on Science Education

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Paleontological Profiles: Robert Bakker was written by Brian Switek in April, 2008. The article is interesting overall, but this section particularly resonates with me:

[Switek] Finally, as someone who works with the “bones of contention” and the fossil record, what do you think about the current controversy surrounding evolution in the United States? How can we do a better job of communicating science to the public?

[Bakker] We dino-scientists have a great responsibility: our subject matter attracts kids better than any other, except rocket-science. What’s the greatest enemy of science education in the U.S.?

Militant Creationism?

No way. It’s the loud, strident, elitist anti-creationists. The likes of Richard Dawkins and his colleagues.

These shrill uber-Darwinists come across as insultingly dismissive of any and all religious traditions. If you’re not an atheist, then you must be illiterate or stupid and, possibly, a danger to yourself and others.

As many commentators have noted, in televised debates, these Darwinists seem devoid of joy or humor, except a haughty delight in looking down their noses. Dawkinsian screeds are sermons to the choir; the message pleases only those already convinced. Dawkins wins no converts from the majority of U.S. parents who still honor a Biblical tradition.

There’s a lot of discussion about this lately on Scienceblogs, and probably other places as well, specifically in relation to some drama happening around the release of Ben Stein’s new film, “Expelled.” It’s been quite interesting to follow, but also a bit disheartening, as some of the pro-evolutionists can be quite strident, something which is one of my biggest pet peeves about the science community. Science and spiritual belief are NOT mutually exclusive, even though loads of people on both sides seem to believe that they are.

You can read the entire article here:  http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2008/04/07/paleontological-profiles-rober/