In this way you can build a core using the framework at NSDL for a generalization, ( http://strandmaps.nsdl.org/cms1-2/docs/index.jsp )call on data from eol.org for detail, and use an instance or an article from National Geographic for an example.

1. Generalizized Framework statement: Species change over time
2. Example detail from “Ask a Scientist”:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00487.htm
a.) Examine diversity of taxa:
http://eol.org/taxa/16098245
3. Lab activity:
http://www.biotech.iastate.edu/lab_protocols/EvoAntiResBact.html
4. Developing medium scale understanding: National Geo. article on Green Sahara
5. Developing long scale understanding from the evolution of whales:
http://www.tolweb.org/Cetacea/15977
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1639514
6. For those who wish to argue over it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/

If you looked at the developer’s API page at NSDL you will get a feeling of how data sources are evolving to respond to the needs of discovery. If Discovery is extended to include education, and I see no reason it shouldn’t, an online resource for students should be relatively do-able.

The roadblock to this is of course the traditional “ghettoization” of knowledge by professional data hoarders. Fortunately, there is an increasing population of scientists who understand the connectedness of knowledge and the inevitability of being absorbed into the Borg-like world of wikis and federated data. I, for one, welcome….

http://www.eol.org/files/pdfs/EOL_Newsletter_Issue2.pdf

I doubt if that will come up in physics, chemistry or A & P, but you never know.

I also agree with the dumbing down and it being due, in part, to teachers teaching the test.

In Texas students have to pass tests at certain points in their education in order to be able to move forward and eventually graduate. A lot of schools now do exactly that, teach the test, and it has killed a number of formerly good programs.

It has resulted in physics becoming physical science (formerly taught to 8th and 9th graders), chemistry being watered down to about the same level, that of a pre-chem 8th or 9th grade level class (or lower). Biology seems a bit less effected.

Basically what was taught to 8th and 9th graders in the 80’s is now main stream Jr/Sr course work and they now find that level of study difficult.

I went back into the HS for a couple of years, a couple of years ago. My style of teaching concepts was very difficult given the students new propensity to want the tests ahead of time to be able to “learn” the tests. Once they found out that they didn’t need to “learn” the tests in order to pass the tests, they did fine. But it was like pulling teeth to get them there again.

Luckily, my daughters schools don’t seem to teach the tests so much as the subject at hand. They tend to now see the TAKS test as kind of a joke and can’t imagine that anyone might actually fail it.

And to recognize that even descriptions of Whitehead’s ideas are difficult is a start. It might make you less quick to pooh pooh ideas of others that may have had their genesis in the ideas of these pioneers.

My sense is that you have suffered from a lack of the type of curiosity sufficient to overcome the effort it takes to examine these difficult concepts. But you do the budding curiosity of your students a disservice if you aren’t ready for the broad range of questions they can surely be expected to come up with.

Otherwise you will be just one more contributor to the dumbing down process that is endemic to our present system – to the philosophy of advancing students through the system by simply teaching the test, as one example.

And life forms are both purposive and purposeful, in case that’s a question on the test.

What the hey. I tried.

Thank you for clarifying what it is that I truly believe and do.

Without someone like you to delineate my thoughts I might never have seen the truth of what I was thinking.

Thank you so much.

How dare I be so dishonest with myself.

Niles,

You have there.

I have never heard of Alfred North Whitehead, at least not by name.

I know, I should have consulted an early 20th century phylosopher, mathematician and logician before I started teaching science. Actually, you might be right about that. I will look into his “stuff” and see what he has to say.

My conflict of interest might hinder my research however.

You’re an apologist for things like subluxations and “innate intelligence” and “life energy” and chiropractice in general. Sure you won’t actually say you believe in these quacky ideas, what you do as an apologist is try to keep the door open and propose that it’s just a matter of semantics really and so on. That’s what apologists do, they’re not standing up and honestly defending a belief they hold, they’re being apologetic about it and trying to slip it in the door through various strategies.
You may grand assertions about what ALL chiropractors believe or don’t believe that are contradicted by evidence collected by chiropractors to suit whatever you think will play with people into science who read here or who are searching for scientific info on chiropractice (that’s why you try to present yourself as being into evidence-based medicine even though the only chiropractors you ever criticize are those who are evidence-based!). Calling me a liar doesn’t actually make you honest ya know…but once again it seems to be the best you can do in the face of it being pointed out that you profit from practicing a pseudoscience (which you unquestioningly believe to be a science) while purporting to teach science – this is a clear conflict of interest.

When did I ever comment at all about ‘blocked life energy”, or make some claim for subluxations other than to say that I don’t dismiss them out of hand. And we already know the “vast” evidence for the dangers of chiropractic.

I am still waiting for someone to summarize it all in one place. Shouldn’t take too much room on a post.

And I am critical of medical mistakes, not medicine. Mistakes. Errors which kill daily. Accidental, avoidable errors, not medicine. Are you capable of understanding that FiFi.

You twist the truth of what I say even better that the other anti-chiro’s I have encountered. That means that you lie FiFi to promote your own agenda. Get it? Lying?

I also don’t contradict other chiro’s info, I just don’t know any who treat subluxations. Understand the difference FiFi?

I have also seen the evidence presented to support some of what chiro does for patients, only to have it shunned without even reading it. That also is a lie, in and of itself.

I do see chiro work everyday, no doubt about that, but in conjunction with regular therapeutic procedures and not alone as a treatment for subluxations. Like I have said a million times now, I don’t treat subluxations, nor do the chiro’s I know. We treat injuries, not subluxations.

There is no apologist activity here on my part. The subluxation treaters can defend themselves but I doubt if they feel you are worthy of their time.

And what part of what problem am I FiFi? You gonna make up some more BS, stwist a few more of my comments, lie about what you claim I do or say?

Which among us truely has “faux” claims of authority on this blog?

Like I said, this makes you part of the problem not the solution and means you’re quite possibly actively destructive as a teacher not the positive contributor you claim to be. Your faux claims to authority as a means to try to validate yourself and invalidate others is meaningless.