Anthropology is the study of humanity, in all its biological and cultural aspects, past and present. It is a four-field discipline comprised of biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. The focus of this book is biological anthropology, which explores who we are from biological, evolutionary, and adaptive perspectives.

Students explore the concepts of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925, the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Once the pride of the German Navy, this 700 foot long heavy cruiser was used by the U.S. as a test target for not one but two atom bombs at Bikini atoll. Today, at the bottom of the ocean, the radiation levels of the Prinz Eugen are low enough for safe exploration. In this video, Jonathan joins historian Mark Miller on a trip to explore this mysterious shipwreck. What they find about the condition of this wreck is surprising. Please see the accompanying lesson plan for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

In this activity, students work in groups to put a set of cartoon cards in order, much in the way that we might assemble a geologic history. The primary goal of the activity is to explore the nature of science in general and the nature of geoscience or historical science specifically, without requiring any content knowledge.

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Students read an article titled "The Sixth Extinction" by Niles Eldredge on past mass extinctions and the current rate of loss of species. The instructor can choose from a suite of activities which include having students respond to discussion and extension questions about the article, write an essay on the article defending Eldredge's view, create an extinction chart, and debate the actions of stakeholders faced with an endangered species vs. human water needs scenario. Students will need to research additional references to complete the activities and be prepared to defend their positions.

Using this lesson plan students will be more aware of how plants and animals adapt to wildland fire. They will: Discuss the adaptive strategies of plants and animals to survive fire. Observe plants and animals in your local area. Design a plant or animal that is adapted for fire survival.

The evolutionary tree presented focuses on relationships among the ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii). You can click on the colored logos to read about evolutionary innovations and see lists of characteristics that evolved in different lineages. Note that this tree has been pruned to focus on certain groups of interest.

For this actiivty the students will watch a Nova documentary called "The Four-Winged Dinosaur." The documentary follows two teams of scientists as they create replicas of microraptor, a dinosaur with four feathered wings, in an attempt to determine how flight evolved in birds (from the ground up or from the trees down). As the students watch the video, they should think about each hypothesis and pay attention to the lines of evidence presented on both sides of the argument. The students are given specific questions to answer while watching the video that will help them pay attention to key ideas. Outside of class they are responsible for writing a short essay (~1 page, typed) describing which origin of flight hypothesis that they believe is the most plausible and why. Students must support their argument with evidence presented in the video.

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Purpose of Exercise: Provide students with an appreciation of the importance of using a rigorous scientific approach to the study of functional morphology. Students are asked to intuitively interpret the function of fossil skeletal morphologies. From this they identify a variety of genuine methodologies used in functional morphology, appreciate the importance of using multiple approaches, and realize how easy it is to generate untested hypotheses of function (i.e., adaptive storytelling).

Materials: Class breaks up into 4 groups of 4 students. Each is presented with a fossil or shell from an invertebrate animal. The shells provided: (1) modern Nautilus, sliced laterally to show the chamber walls; (2) Archimedes bryozoan, just the helically spiraled core of a colony; (3) fossil scaphopod; and (4) fossil gastropod with spines along the apertural lip. Only the group with the gastropod should know the phylogenic affinity of the fossil: tell this group the shell is of a gastropod. The groups with the Archimedes and the scaphopod are asked to interpret the function of the entire shell; they should not be told whether or not the entire skeleton is represented. The Nautilus group is asked to consider the function of the chamber walls. The group with the gastropod is asked to consider the function of just the spines.

Procedure:
1. The groups are asked, based on their intuition, to interpret the function of their shell or structure. (5 mins)
2. Without inquiring about their specific interpretations, the groups are then asked to think about what methodologies, philosophies, or logical approaches were utilized to make functional inferences. (5 mins)
3. Each group reports back.
4. On the board generate a list of the approaches identified. These should reflect many of the formal methods recognized within the discipline. Note how interpretations are tenuous or flawed when based on merely one approach; also note mistaken functions because of wrong assumptions or misapplied methods. (10 mins)
5. Follow this with a short lecture / discussion reviewing the formal methods employed in functional morphology.

The following files are uploaded as supportive teaching materials:
1. Lesson plan with the "conceptual change model" outline.

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Emotions play a crucial role in our lives because they have important functions. This module describes those functions, dividing the discussion into three areas: the intrapersonal, the interpersonal, and the social and cultural functions of emotions. The section on the intrapersonal functions of emotion describes the roles that emotions play within each of us individually; the section on the interpersonal functions of emotion describes the meanings of emotions to our relationships with others; and the section on the social and cultural functions of emotion describes the roles and meanings that emotions have to the maintenance and effective functioning of our societies and cultures at large. All in all we will see that emotions are a crucially important aspect of our psychological composition, having meaning and function to each of us individually, to our relationships with others in groups, and to our societies as a whole.

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of game theory and mechanism design. Motivations are drawn from engineered/networked systems (including distributed control of wireline and wireless communication networks, incentive-compatible/dynamic resource allocation, multi-agent systems, pricing and investment decisions in the Internet), and social models (including social and economic networks). The course emphasizes theoretical foundations, mathematical tools, modeling, and equilibrium notions in different environments.

This month, biologists reported that a bacterial infection has run rampant in populations of a major crop pest in the Southwest. The bacterium (called Rickettsia) is a close relative of the species that causes typhus in humans. Its host is the sweet potato whitefly, a tiny bug that can occur in large enough numbers to form visible clouds. Whiteflies suck the sap from plants and spread crop diseases, causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage in a single season. In just a few years, the percentage of southwestern whiteflies infected with Rickettsia has skyrocketed from 1% to more than 90%. Unfortunately, this is not the boon for local farmers that it might seem.

An integrated course stressing the principles of biology. Life processes are examined primarily at the organismal and population levels. Intended for students majoring in biology or for non-majors who wish to take advanced biology courses.

The goal of the Genetic Origins Program is to allow students to use their own DNA variations (polymorphisms) as a means to explore our shared genetic heritage and its implications for human health and society. Genetic Origins focuses on two types of DNA variations: an Alu insertion polymorphism on chromosome 16 (PV92) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the control region of the mitochondrial (mt) chromosome. With two alleles and three genotypes, PV92 is a simple genetic system that illustrates Mendelian inheritance on a molecular level. PV92 data is readily analyzed using population statistics. The mt control region is one of the simplest regions of human DNA to sequence. With a high mutation rate, the mt control region is the "classical" system for studying human and primate evolution. The Genetic Origins site and linked Bioservers site have all the information needed for students to perform the Alu and mt DNA experiments and analyze the results - including online protocols, reagents, animations and videos explaining key concepts, and database tools.

How genetic variation is the raw material of evolution, and how restricted gene flow can lead to the formation of new species.

This BLOSSOMS lesson will help students conceptualize the enormity of geologic time and learn about important events in Earth s history. Students will also learn how geologic time can help explain seemingly incomprehensible processes, like the formation of the Himalayan Mountains from a flat plain to their current height, and the evolution of a tiny group of reptiles into enormous dinosaurs. During the breaks, students will construct a geologic timeline of their own in the classroom and do simple calculations to determine how long amounts of time can lead to impressive changes in the height of the Himalayan Mountains and the size of a group of reptiles.

This educational video features Sperm whales and has an accompanying lesson plan to teach about Sound in the Sea. The Sperm whale holds many records. It is the deepest-diving whale on Earth, the largest toothed whale on Earth and has the largest brain on the planet too. On top of that, it has a reputation for being a vicious beast, thanks in part to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. But the real Sperm whale is a lot different than people think. It has a highly-evolved social life, operates at depths where nobody can see them most of the time, and uses sonar which is so sophisticated that it makes the Navy's electronics look like toys. Sperm whales are very hard to find and even harder to film. In the Caribbean, Jonathan repeatedly attempts to get close to the elusive whales, until finally he succeeds and has an incredible experience eye to eye with a giant who investigates him with powerful sonar clicks. Please see the accompanying lesson plan for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

In a quiet forest in central Florida, a mysterious pond filled with warm clear water hides a secret at the bottom. In this video, Jonathan explores the pond to find a spring which leads into a cave. As Jonathan travels underground, he meets unexpected marine life in the dark depths and learns how water travels through an aquifer from the underground world to the surface. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

In this activity, students explore the relationship between developmental biology and macroevolution by focusing on how evolutionary changes in ontogeny can produce small-scale (within species) and large-scale (between species or major lineages) evolution of morphology.

In Part A, students begin the activity by measuring skull length vs. braincase width in an ontogenetic sequence of an "ancestral" wolf species. They graph the resulting data then determine whether the relationship between the two is isometric or allometric.

In part B, they choose three skulls of adult domestic dog breeds (available via online sources such as Skulls Unlimited). Measure the same two variables and compare these "descendent" data to the wolf "ancestral" data. In this way, they determine which dog breeds (e.g., pugs, bulldogs) appear to be paedomorphic and which (e.g., greyhounds) appear to be peramorphic.

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