This article profiles Linda Deegan, scientist with the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research site in the Kuparuk River region of Alaska, as she counts and tags Arctic grayling as they migrate from streams to lakes in the fall.

This activity is a field investigation where students observe plants, animals, and insects that are common to Minnesota.

In this lesson, students find their location on a map using Latitude and Longitudinal coordinates. They determine where they should go to be rescued and how best to get there.

Here in the Dunn lab, siphonophores are our favorite animal and the focus of much of our research. Dr. Phil Pugh is a good friend of the lab, and he also happens to have described more new species of siphonophores than anyone who has ever lived. In the video below, he describes what it’s like to come across a siphonophore in the deep sea with a submarine. What looks like one long body in this video is actually a free-swimming colony of clones — many genetically identical bodies that are all attached. But each body in the group isn’t just like its neighbor. They each do a specific job for the colony. Some individuals will swim, some will catch food, and some will reproduce.

Riley Thompson, from the College of the Atlantic, tells the story of how animals become invisible.

If you are stuck to a rock it is tricky to get close enough to a partner to mate. One solution to this problem would be to release eggs or sperm into the open water, which is what many animals in this situation do. Acorn barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides), however, found a different solution. They have evolved the longest penis relative to their body size of any animal. In this video the penises of several barnacles are probing the neighborhood for mates. The penis is re-grown each mating season.

Sophia Tintori and Cassandra Extavour talk about the evolution and development of multicellular organisms, and in particular the specialization of reproductive cells.

Riley Thompson made this animation about the fascinating lifecycle of narco babies. We usually don’t think of babies that grow inside their mothers as parasites, but sometimes the lines get very blurry. This is especially true in Narcomedusae, a group of poorly known jellyfish found throughout the world’s oceans.

This video demonstrates some of the features of PhyloTree. It then shows the early explosive discovery of mammal species (most major mammal groups were discovered early on), and then shows the slow and steady discovery of cnidarians (many cnidarians remain to be described). The tool can also be used to quickly find the first species that was described in a group. The first siphonophore to be described, for example, was Physalia physalis (the Portuguese man o’ war).

Alysse Austin, a student in Casey Dunn’s Invertebrate Zoology course at Brown University, describes sexual dimorphism in green spoonworm.

Here is a semi-interactive video (with the option of a single, non-interactive video here) from CreatureCast alum Sophia Tintori, featuring tips from a handful of ocean-dwellers that each have drastically different approaches to being invisible.

In this first video, Alison Sweeney talks about work that has been done in the Morse lab on Squid iridescence.

This comprehensive reference list highlights numerous articles related to Cretaceous marine reptiles and provides links to other relevant, classic paleontology references. Several of these references date back to the 1800's and some articles are hyperlinked to pdf files that can be easily downloaded and printed. Examples of topics covered by these references include the Cretaceous period, paleontology, evolution, marine reptiles, Cretaceous fossils and sedimentary rocks.

With your mouse, drag data points and their error bars, and watch the best-fit polynomial curve update instantly. You choose the type of fit: linear, quadratic, cubic, or quartic. The reduced chi-square statistic shows you when the fit is good. Or you can try to find the best fit by manually adjusting fit parameters.

Students learn how DNA fingerprinting has been used in criminal investigations and discuss the limitations of and problems with DNA testing.

Students perform DNA forensics using food coloring to enhance their understanding of DNA fingerprinting, restriction enzymes, genotyping and DNA gel electrophoresis. They place small drops of different food coloring ("water-based paint") on strips of filter paper and then place one paper strip end in water. As water travels along the paper strips, students observe the pigments that compose the paint decompose into their color components. This is an example of the chromatography concept applied to DNA forensics, with the pigments in the paint that define the color being analogous to DNA fragments of different lengths.

This nonfiction article, written for students in grades 4-5, explores the life and seasonal migration of the sanderling bird. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.

The dark reactions of photosynthesis (Calvin Cycle) are presented in this learning experience to show where these processes take place in the plant as well as the specific reactions involved.

This video segment from Evolution: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," together with interviews with Daniel Dennett and James Moore, depicts Darwin struggling with publicizing his revolutionary theory.

This online article is from the Museum's Science Explorations, a collaboration between AMNH and Scholastic designed to promote science literacy. Written for students in grades 6-10, this article from Science World magazine has an interview with AMNH paleontologist Niles Eldredge, in which he explains how the eye-opening sights Charles Darwin encountered during his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle inspired his thinking about the diversity of life on Earth. There are Web links that offer further opportunities for learning about Darwin and his years after the voyage.