The word anthropology means literally "the study of man." We are a complicated species, and anthropologists poke into every aspect of our human nature.
Lucy belonged to genus Australopithecus and the species afarensis, but she also belonged to the the hominid family (hominidae) to which humans belong. Although humans are of the family hominidae, we are not of Lucy's genus or species. We are Homo sapiens. How then, can Lucy be our ancient ancestor if we belong to a different genus and species? It's because humans and Lucy share a taxonomy up to the point of genus and species; there are many shared characteristics, but there are differences and these differences place humans in our own genus and species.
This is a task from the Illustrative Mathematics website that is one part of a complete illustration of the standard to which it is aligned. Each task has at least one solution and some commentary that addresses important asects of the task and its potential use. Here are the first few lines of the commentary for this task: Maned wolves are a threatened species that live in South America. People estimate that there are about 24,000 of them living in the wild. The dhole is ...
This Unit is Transdisciplinary reinforcing the importance of the honeybee.
The hazards associated with convective systems present some of the most dangerous conditions encountered by aircraft and pose many challenges to aviation operations. When convection is forecast to develop, aviation forecasters are required to issue a series of warning messages and other meteorological aeronautical products to various members of the aviation community. This lesson teaches these forecasters how to produce the products, doing so in the context of a case study in which learners assume the role of aeronautical forecaster on duty at the airport in Niamey, Niger on a night when convection develops. The lesson is one of three aviation weather case studies developed by the ASMET team to improve aviation forecasting in Africa.
It's no secret that greenhouse gases warm the planet and that this has dire consequences for the environment whole islands swallowed up by rising seas, animal and plant species stressed by higher temperatures, and upsets in ecological interactions as populations move to cooler areas. However, carbon dioxide has another, less familiar environmental repercussion: making the Earth's oceans more acidic. Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that more carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean. This dissolved carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid the same substance that helps give carbonated beverages their acidic kick. While this process isn't going to make the ocean fizzy anytime soon, it is introducing its own set of challenges for marine organisms like plankton and coral.
More than four million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 87-day period following the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010. The environmental and social effects of the Gulf Oil Spill will continue to draw the attention of educators for years to come as scientists continue to learn more about The Deepwater Horizon blowout and its impacts over time. Help teach your students about this event using PLT activities.
Our human society consists of many intertwined Large Scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSSTS), such as infrastructures, industrial networks, the financial systems etc. Environmental pressures created by these systems on EarthŰŞs carrying capacity are leading to exhaustion of natural resources, loss of habitats and biodiversity, and are causing a resource and climate crisis. To avoid this sustainability crisis, we urgently need to transform our production and consumption patterns. Given that we, as inhabitants of this planet, are part of a complex and integrated global system, where and how should we begin this transformation? And how can we also ensure that our transformation efforts will lead to a sustainable world? LSSTS and the ecosystems that they are embedded in are known to be Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). According to John Holland CAS are "...a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it will have to to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment" by many individual agents. Understanding Complex Adaptive Systems requires tools that themselves are complex to create and understand. Shalizi defines Agent Based Modeling as "An agent is a persistent thing which has some state we find worth representing, and which interacts with other agents, mutually modifying each otherŰŞs states. The components of an agent-based model are a collection of agents and their states, the rules governing the interactions of the agents and the environment within which they live." This course will explore the theory of CAS and their main properties. It will also teach you how to work with Agent Based Models in order to model and understand CAS.
This collection focuses on a rapidly evolving field in which the study of both species-specific and ubiquitous aging mechanisms informs the biological process of aging. Yet the field is not without substantial controversy, differing views arise as we come to understand aging across model systems - from bacteria to humans.
In this Interactive Lecture Demonstration, students will predict the main issues that might be included in short French language videos treating topics such as endangered species, organic farming, the effect of aerosols on the environment, pollution and sustainable development. They will then view short videos on the topics and reflect on how their prior assumptions meshed with reality.
"Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species," says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Her research explores the sophisticated intelligence-gathering and decision-making that babies are really doing when they play.
Commercial fishing nets often trap "unprofitable" animals in the process of catching target species. In this activity, students experience the difficulty that fishermen experience while trying to isolate a target species when a variety of sea animals are found in the area of interest. Then the class discusses the large magnitude of this problem. Students practice data acquisition and analysis skills by collecting data and processing it to deduce trends on target species distribution. They conclude by discussing how bycatch impacts their lives and whether or not it is an important environmental issue that needs attention. As an extension, students use their creativity and innovative skills to design nets or other methods, theoretically and/or through hands-on prototyping, that fisherman could use to help avoid bycatch.
Bycatch, the unintended capture of animals in commercial fishing gear, is a hot topic in marine conservation today. The surprisingly high level of bycatch about 25% of the entire global catch is responsible for the decline of hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, porpoises, seabirds and sea turtles each year. Through this curricular unit, students analyze the significance of bycatch in the global ecosystem and propose solutions to help reduce bycatch. They become familiar with current attempts to reduce the fishing mortality of these animals. Through the associated activities, the challenges faced today are reinforced and students are stimulated to brainstorm about possible engineering designs or policy changes that could reduce the magnitude of bycatch.
In this Science Update, from Science NetLinks, students listen to an interview with Kevin Kelly, co-founder and board chairman of the All Species Foundation in San Francisco. Kelly discusses his mission to discover, identify, and document every species on Earth within the next 25 years. Students then read more information about the project, and conclude by answering some related questions. Science Updates are audio interviews with scientists and are accompanied by a set of questions as well as links to related Science NetLinks lessons and other related resources.
These images from the Smithsonian Institution depict Nancy Knowlton's work with snapping shrimp in Panama. Knowlton found that the closing of the isthmus -- dividing the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean -- resulted in new species of shrimp. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
In this video excerpt from Dinosaur Train, Buddy, Tiny, Shiny and Don lead a large group of dinosaurs in singing "Dinosaurs A to Z" at a picnic. From this clip, children will learn about the alphabet as well as the names of different dinosaur species. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.
Because small mammals are prey species, they do not take to intensive conditions of surgery and hospitalisation very readily. Those that are handled very frequently by their owners are more bonded with humans and better surgical subjects as a result. Rodents and rabbits are particularly susceptible to the surgical complications of dehydration (blood and fluid loss), core temperature depression, hypovolaemic shock, ileus and renal and respiratory depression.
Analytical chemistry spans nearly all areas of chemistry but involves the development of tools and methods to measure physical properties of substances and apply those techniques to the identification of their presence (qualitative analysis) and quantify the amount present (quantitative analysis) of species in a wide variety of settings.
In this seminar you will begin to explore the adaptations of the polar bear and learn how they stay alive in such a harsh environment. You will be thinking interdependently and using the complex reasoning skill of comparing. You will compare the adaptations of one arctic creature to another. Additionally, you will find a way to persuade people to save endangered arctic animals.StandardsStandard - 3.1.4.A5Describe common functions living things share to help them function in a specific environment.
The focus of this Science NetLinks lesson is threefold. First, to expose students to the fact that all species have a capacity for communication. Second, to enlighten students to the fact that communication abilities range from very simple to extremely complex, depending upon the species. Third, to realize that communication is influenced by a species' genetic makeup, its environment, and the numerous ways by which animals and humans respond to and adapt to their surroundings.