The course is designed for many audiences, including teachers, students, families, youth leaders, policy makers, and anyone interested in learning more about the diversity of life on our planet. We hope that you will not only learn things from the course, but will also be moved to become even more active stewards of the environment and its precious biodiversity.
We are launching this course with two islands of the archipelago available for your exploration: “Why is biodiversity important?” and the hotspot aspects of “Where do we find biodiversity?” The hikes on each island include videos, articles, a glossary, quiz questions, activities, and an annotated list of selected references, in case you want to dig even deeper into the content. Here’s a hint for the quiz questions: they are drawn from material presented not only in the videos, but also in the accompanying articles. We are eager to hear from all of you biodiversity explorers how you like the course, and any questions or suggestions you have. Please use the community questions section to give us feedback. Because we hope that teachers will find this course of interest and use, we have included links to the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards in the selected references. Please let us know if you would like more detailed linkages and mapping.
Over the next several months, we will be adding more islands and more hikes, addressing such topics as how biodiversity is documented, why it is threatened, how it can be protected, where it comes from, and what types of biodiversity there are. So, lace up those hiking boots and keep checking back – there will be more and more about biodiversity to explore!
Lastly, because some people have already asked, we include here a thumbnail description of how we produce the videos and the accompanying materials, and who is involved. The voice (narrator) of the videos and the artistic talent behind the sketches (including the archipelago drawing above) belong to Rich Mooi, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology at the California Academy of Sciences (CAS), and echinoderm expert extraordinaire. The content for each video starts as a detailed outline developed by Rich and Meg Burke (CAS Director of Teacher & Youth Education, and behavioral ecologist), which is then transformed by Rich into a lecture that he delivers to Meg and a few other members of the core team. The lecture transcript is then converted into an actual script with invaluable guidance from our in-house production team in our Science Visualization Studio: Tom Kennedy (Head of Production) and Molly Michelson (Producer). After the script is set and the final voice-over completed, Rich’s sketches are captured digitally, in real time in an entertaining, interactive, chocolate-fueled session where ideas for the cartoons get kicked around. These sessions, and final video production, are ably supported by Nick Perez (Viz Studio Videographer/Editor). The sketches are brought to life by the magical animation work of Grant Inouye and Morris Watts-Zagha. The supporting educational written materials are the work of Meg, Helena Carmena Young (consultant and former CAS staff) and Kathryn Danielson (CAS Teacher Education Specialist). Production Assistant Dannie Holzer helps the entire team. We all hope you enjoy exploring the tutorials as much as we have enjoyed making them!
Rich, Meg, Tom, Molly, Nick, Grant, Morris, Helena, Kathryn and Dannie