Biologist in the Classroom

Sharing a fun blog post by CSR’s Kent Fothergill…

From the mouths of babes…

If you ever really want to test your skills, go into a third grade class room and present about your passion. A group of inquisitive 8-year-old kids can reduce even the most hardened field biologist to rubble. There is simply nothing more fun or rewarding than sharing biodiversity with kids – and it may be the most important activity given the state of natural history education in our nation.

Normally, I go into a classroom setting armed with four stations and three helpers (yeah, we make the teacher work too). We try having a cage of live insects collected within a half mile of the school, all life stages of at least one insect, and two Cornell drawers full of gee whiz bugs. This is big fun – it is awesome to leave a classroom of kids buzzing about insects.

The event depicted only happened once, but it was a magnificent question. I didn’t go into R and K selection, rarity, focused collection vs. backyard bug lights, documentation, or anything else – the question was pure and the answer this kid was seeking went far beyond my activities. As long as our schools produce kids who can ask good questions, the future will be in good hands.

Enjoy the comic: really happened, but everything is changed.

“Super-Mega-Botanist Friendship Friends” Part 5

CSR’s Biologist, Kent Fothergill, produced this stream of comic strips to aide in the education of plant identification. Click here to view the first four comics in the series.

“Super-Mega-Botanist Friendship Friends” Part 4

CSR’s Biologist, Kent Fothergill, produced this stream of comic strips to aide in the education of plant identification. Click here to view the first three comics in the series.

“Super-Mega-Botanist Friendship Friends” Part 3

CSR’s Biologist, Kent Fothergill, produced this stream of comic strips to aide in the education of plant identification. Click here to view the first two comics in the series.

“Super-Mega-Botanist Friendship Friends” Part 2

The CSR Team relies on two main plant keys: Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual (Hitchcock and Cronquist) and Vascular Plants of Wyoming (Dorn). These are very different botanical keys, with often very different names for the same plant. To help wade through the confusion, CSR’s Biologist, Kent Fothergill, produced a stream of comic strips to aide in the education of plant identification.

Click here to view the first set of comics in the series, and then read on as our superheros battle the dangers of bio-polluting. Enjoy!

“Super-Mega-Botanist Friendship Friends”

The CSR Team relies on two main plant keys: Flora of the Pacific Northwest (Hitchcock and Cronquist) and Flora of Wyoming (Dorn). These are very different botanical keys, with often very different names for the same plant. As an example, Sego Lilies of the genus Calochortus are removed from the family Liliaceae and placed into the family Calochortaceae – a family recognized by a few taxonomic systems, but definitely not mainstream. In Dorn, the genus Aster becomes a new genera, causing much confusion.

To help wade through the confusion, CSR’s Biologist, Kent Fothergill, produced a stream of comic strips to aide in the education of plant identification…Enjoy!