New Biology Poster

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From: Karen Kalumuck (karenk@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 17:14:40 PDT 

Message-Id: <v01540b07b714febd4820@[192.174.3.119]>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 17:14:40 -0700
From: karenk@exploratorium.edu (Karen Kalumuck)
Subject: New Biology Poster

Hi All!

Question: What Biology topic do you have the most trouble teaching that an
engaging visual could help?

As an adjunct to the new permanent collection of Life Sciences exhibits
that's currently being developed ("Traits of Life", scheduled to be on the
floor January 2002) the Exploratorium is going to design and print a new
Biology poster. It will be included in one of our quarterly magazines and
a a laminated version will be made available for sale to educators. We
envision the audience as high school level and above (although some upper
middle school classrooms may be interested).

We have some ideas as to the focus of the poster, but would also like to
get some initial feedback from you all. We envision an extremely engaging
visual, with some (but limited) text. The poster for sale will also come
with a teacher packet that includes hands-on activities relating to the
poster.

Two popular ideas (with the poster development staff) are a "powers of ten"
type idea, showing a human body part, magnified to a cell, magnified to
cell components (and actually showing the density of cell
components/molecules the way they really are, without the empty space that
is usually depicted). This poster would help to illuminate the scale of
things, as well as cell structure.

A second idea is to showcase the range of different cell types, perhaps
just animal cells, perhaps all cell types.

Do either of these resonate with you, dear pinholers? Do you have some
other suggestions?

Thanks for your help! After we decide on a general topic, we will organize
some focus groups for teachers to help us develop the idea.

---Karen Kalumuck

Karen E. Kalumuck, Ph.D.
Biologist
Exploratorium Teacher Institute
3601 Lyon St.
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-561-0388
karenk@exploratorium.edu

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