One of the dangers with designing curriculum in the vacuum of an office, with my teammates, is the tendency to plan too much, at too high of a level. So while we end up with in-depth lesson plans, many possible angles and extension possibilities, the reality of our job is we have a very short time with the children to deliver our message. The concept of the lesson I was to present to the students that day was that animals possess characteristics that can fall into agreed upon classes, i.e. because a dog has fur and delivers live puppies, it is classified as a mammal. Where the lesson goes depends on the prior knowledge of the children, how much the teacher has taught of our curriculum, etc.

The first thing I do with the children is to try and engage them by asking them , "What is their favorite animal?" Depending on the answer, we can go into limb form and function, characteristics, etc. Once in a while, though, a child gives you something unexpected, a gift, that heads you into an unexpected arena. This week's gift came from a beautiful kindergarten girl, delicate in stature, unsteady in her gait, with eyeglasses and hearing aids.

When it was her turn to share with the group her favorite animal, after listening to "doggies, kitties, horses, and a gorilla", she looked right at me and said, "a mermaid". Hmmm, where do I go with that one?

Genomic analysis published in May of this year, in the journal Nature, shows the duck billed platypus' 18,527 protein-encoding genes contain alive-and-well representatives from mammals, birds and reptiles. Trying not to get into genomes with a five year old, I asked her which group of animals did she think a mermaid would fall into, fish or mammals?  She was not sure. I told her I wasn't sure either, and like other scientists, we would have to do some more research!

One of the dangers with designing curriculum in the vacuum of an office, with my teammates, is the tendency to plan too much, at too high of a level. So while we end up with in-depth lesson plans, many possible angles and extension possibilities, the reality of our job is we have a very short time with the children to deliver our message. The concept of the lesson I was to present to the students that day was that animals possess characteristics that can fall into agreed upon classes, i.e. because a dog has fur and delivers live puppies, it is classified as a mammal. Where the lesson goes depends on the prior knowledge of the children, how much the teacher has taught of our curriculum, etc.

The first thing I do with the children is to try and engage them by asking them , "What is their favorite animal?" Depending on the answer, we can go into limb form and function, characteristics, etc. Once in a while, though, a child gives you something unexpected, a gift, that heads you into an unexpected arena. This week's gift came from a beautiful kindergarten girl, delicate in stature, unsteady in her gait, with eyeglasses and hearing aids.

When it was her turn to share with the group her favorite animal, after listening to "doggies, kitties, horses, and a gorilla", she looked right at me and said, "a mermaid". Hmmm, where do I go with that one?

Genomic analysis published in May of this year, in the journal Nature, shows the duck billed platypus' 18,527 protein-encoding genes contain alive-and-well representatives from mammals, birds and reptiles. Trying not to get into genomes with a five year old, I asked her which group of animals did she think a mermaid would fall into, fish or mammals?  She was not sure. I told her I wasn't sure either, and like other scientists, we would have to do some more research!