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How have mutations and natural selection affected fur color in mice?

Four differently colored mice

In this analysis and discussion activity, students figure out how mutations and natural selection have resulted in matches between the fur colors of populations of rock pocket mice and their environments.

Next, students view a video that presents relevant research findings, and students answer the embedded multiple-choice questions.

Then, students answer multiple questions and analyze several scenarios to enhance their understanding of mutations and natural selection.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files and as a Google doc designed for use in online instruction and distance learning. The Teacher Notes, available in the last two attached files, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

jrlewis's picture

Sequence Singe

one

one 

two

three

.....

amplexus

embrace 

braid around

ample please us

.....

amphibians

slippery 

tree frogs 

and true toads 

jrlewis's picture

Lifting the Branch

My tree

tells me I have got you, apple.

Now hand to branch 

to yes, take my trunk.

Yell oh,

here, like hair like feathers like leaves!

Will the rustling leaves

of the swaying tree

say, no yell, oh?

Adam’s apple, 

state the roots, stay the trunk,

and lunging branch.  

Branch

out into orchard, think of the leaves.  

Yes give us a trunk and another trunk.  

Tree

loves its apple

so yellow, yell oh!

We yell over and over oh,

before falling from the branch.  

Apple

loves the leaves.

So the tree

is asking touch my trunk.

Tough the bark of the trunk,

still it will yell oh!

Telling, poem ate tree. 

Tender it is; the branch

never leaves

apple.

Apple

is alive with trunk.  

Leaves

between orange and green and yell oh!

Growing to branch.

This is what it’s like making love with a tree.

Ah the apple.  Ah the leaves.  

Ah the trunk.  Ah the branch.  

Yell oh!  Ah, says the tree.

jrlewis's picture

D/ri/ps

R

e: 

W

at

er

’s 

M

on

ol

go

ue

T

hi

s 

is 

th

e 

ch

ar

ac

te

r 

of 

w

at

er 

w

an

ti

ng 

in

si

de 

th

e 

tr

ee 

w

he

re 

ap

pl

es 

ar

e 

ha

pp

en

in

g.

jrlewis's picture

Feminist Sting

What felt wrong last night, was the need to explain my fear, 

to justify my fear, 

to force my fear onto you?

Into you,

I want to pour,

to open, to offer only good things.  

But sometimes the asymmetry hurts.

jrlewis's picture

Found Introduction

The great St Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, 

the dome radially symmetrical,

each quadrant meets

one of the four spandrels.

Below the dome,

spandrels tapering triangular spaces.   

Two rounded arches at right angles are

byproducts of mounting a dome.  

Spandrel, a design fitted into its space, 

sits in the parts flanked 

by the heavenly.

Below a man,

representing one of the four biblical rivers 

Tigris, 

Euphrates, 

Indus, 

Nile, 

pours water 

from a pitcher in the narrowing space.

Below his feet

is elaborate.  That we to view it

as sense of the surrounding

necessary spandrels. 

They a space which the mosaicists worked.

They set the symmetry

such abound.  

We do not impose our biological biases upon them, 

a series. 

http://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

Workbooked: Past, Present, Future

Breaking from past events sometimes have a way of meeting up with us in the future, either as a memory or an activity which continues from where the initial break left off.


1. What are some breaks in your past that have caught up to your present? How have those breaks influenced and helped determine your present way of life, attitudes and interests?

2. What if those breaks from the past have never occurred—if years after their place in your life, they still exist—or persist? How have they, never having been broken, contribute to the positives in your life today? How have they contributed to what you might consider to be the negative aspects of your current life?

3. If breaks are inevitable and time is the variable, what insight(s) can you glean from their relationship?


--David A. Feingold, Ed.D

View Accompanying Project

Back to the Workbook

Back to The Breaking Project Home Page

Past, Present & Future

I was going through emails this morning as if clearing my mind of thoughts that were no longer useful or necessary and leaving room for the important and the essentials. I came upon my Serendip collection of emails—sent, received and drafts mostly from years past, when in communication with Paul Grobstein. Unlike other emails, none of those relating to Serendip, were appropriate for deletion. There was nothing to throw out, nothing that did not hold meaning and significance since the year 2008, when my first contribution to Serendip was posted: “Disability: Images and Thoughts.” It’s as if there was no break in time since those first communications with Paul, Laura, Alice, and Ann at this very special online crucible of knowledge, creativity, playful thinking, and profound utterances. Having had to concentrate on my work as a school social worker, studies as a doctoral student in disability studies and negotiating a rather complicated and painful breakup of an 8-year relationship, caused me to put aside a number of years ago, an opportunity to contribute to a fascinating undertaking: the Breaking Project.

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Bryn Mawr College's TIDES Project featured in Association of American Colleges and Universities

Bryn Mawr College's TIDES Project (Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM initiative) is featured in the new issue of AAC&U, Diversity & Democracy on Gender Equity in Higher Education, Spring 2015, Vol. 18, No. 2.
"This issue of Diversity & Democracy extends AAC&U's longstanding commitment to addressing gender-based inequities in higher education. Article topics include gender equity among STEM students and faculty, women's leadership in areas such as higher education administration, the role of women's colleges and universities worldwide, and the importance of creating campuses that are safe and inclusive for students of all gender identities."

In Women in Computing: The Imperative of Critical Pedagogical Reform, the "Key to sustaining US global competitiveness is the country's ability to harness the kinds of diverse perspectives that not only are known to fuel better scientific outcomes, but also are associated with the inclusion of underrepresented groups, particularly women and women of color."

Kelly Mack and Melissa Soto, Association of American Colleges and Universities; Lilliam Casillas-Martinez, University of Puerto Rico–Humacao; and Elizabeth F. McCormack, Bryn Mawr College

blendedlearning's picture

BlendLAC 2015 Materials - Now Available!

The wait is over! Visit Bryn Mawr College's repository to view recordings of presentations and slides from presenters. Click here to go to the page. Read the post below for a recap of the conference.

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