Learning+Experience+B

= Learning Experience B (as in bones...not in the text): What can you learn from bones? =

**Learning Objectives: //Students will. . .//**
 * **//practice taking organized, detailed observations (of vertebrate skeletons)//**
 * **//formulate a set of relationships between skeletal shape / features and ancestry//**
 * **//formulate a set of relationships between skeletal shape / features and the environment in which the organize lived//**
 * **//develop a vocabulary for describing skeletal features//**

**Prologue - Student call to mind prior knowledge of the topic** How many bones of the Human Body can you name? Have you broken any? Anatomy Coloring Book sheet - list vocabulary for skull and appendicular skeleton

** Activity ** Skeleton Observation - pairs of student observe and record similarities and difference between skeletal features //What Patterns, Similarities, Differences do you notice?// (students move from station to station). Write a question that occurs to you about each pair. What more would you like to know? What do you wonder about?
 * ===== before class, place pairs of skeletal parts on the table =====
 * student will take one minute to write a list of similarities and differences between the two specimens. (ask them to be as specific and as observant as they can)

** Film ** A Life With Skulls by Beth Cataldo → What can you learn from bones?
 * found on Podcast //Terra episodes 339, 340, 341//
 * Students record answers to the following while you watch the video
 * What can you learn about an animal from looking at it's skull?
 * What is the usefulness of a museum (California Academy of Science) collecting many specimens of the same species over the years?
 * What motivates Ray Bandar to collect skulls?
 * Where do the similarities and differences between individual skeletons come from?

Note: Our first aim of this new unit is for student to develop an understanding of Natural Selections. This learning activity is aimed at having students observe closely inherited traits of animals. This will lay the foundation for students being able to notice, measure, and characterize inherited variation in the next Learning Experience: