How can we do things like this in biol­o­gy? Yeah, nature walks are good, but what else? What can we do for evo­lu­tion? Hands on, excit­ing stuff that goes beyond story-telling? 

What are fun behav­ior projects for kids? What about adults? Maybe we should find some fun “evo­lu­tion around you” activ­i­ties to try with the Board of Ed? Or bad biol­o­gy teach­ers.

I have var­i­ous rea­sons for this ques­tion. There’s some talk among some grad stu­dents of putting togeth­er some edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams for schoolkids. We’ll prob­a­bly be based out of the muse­um of nat­ur­al his­to­ry, so we have exhibits and pre­pared spec­i­mens. But spec­i­mens are so dry and frag­ile. And talk­ing at kids for an hour is, to be blunt, dumb.

So what works? How do we get the young sci­en­tists inter­est­ed in biol­o­gy and systematics?

If you have fun exer­cis­es, or a sto­ry about an event that grabbed you, leave it in the com­ments, or email me.

“The Sol­dier­ing Life” by The Decem­berists from the album Her Majesty (2003, 3:48).