TAKING BIODIVERSITY TO SCHOOL

1. TAKING BIODIVERSITY TO SCHOOL Jorge V. CrisciAcademia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y NaturalesArgentina IANAS Conference and General AssemblyOttawa, CanadaAugust 26-28, 2010

3. Biodiversity is the variety and variability of living things. • Genes •Species •Ecosystems

4. NUMBER OF KNOWN SPECIES (major groups) TOTAL 1,713,000 Insects 1,000,000 Vertebrate 45,000 Other animals 210,000 Virus 4,000 Protozoa 40,000 Bacteria 4,000 Algae 40,000 Fungi 70,000 Higher plants 300,000

5. NUMBER OF SPECIES ON EARTH Known 1,713,000 Unknown 13,400,000 Extrapolations from empirical data (Stork, 1999)

6. The specific objectives of this presentation are to answer the following questions: • Why “Taking Biodiversity to School” ? • Why Now ? • Why IANAS ? • Why Biological Systematics ? • Why “The Medium is the Message” ? • Why the Need of a “Narrative” ?

7. Why “Taking Biodiversity to School” ?

8. Biodiversity is being lost around the world in an escalating epidemic of extinctions.

9. CAUSES OF BIODIVERSITY LOSS • Loss or fragmentation of habitats. • Accelerated exploitation of resources. • Invasion of introduced species. • Water, soil, and air pollution. • Global climate change.

10. “Biodiversity provides humans with renewable resources such as food, fuels, fertile soils, clean water and air, medicines, as well as surroundings of inspirational value.” National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, USA; draft version proposed for release in 2011).

11. “A far greater effort in education in biological diversity is needed to create world-wide public awareness of the issues at stake. Only an educated, global constituency for biodiversity can build up the pressure to ensure that we take the path to a sustainable future”. Koïchiro Matsuura Former General Director UNESCO

12. Why Now ?

13. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity (United Nations). • 22 September 2010 high-level meeting at U.N. on biodiversity (65th session, General Assembly). • The target adopted by the world’s Governments in 2002 to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biodiversity, HAS NOT BEEN MEET.

14. This collective failure will: • be severe for all, • affect the poor first and most severely, • compromise Millennium Development • Goals (UN, 2015) – food security, • eradication of poverty, and a healthier • population.

15. Why IANAS ?

16. Megadiversity Countries concentrate a major portion (2/3) of the Earth’s species. Seven of the seventeen megadiverse countries of the world are located in the Americas: USA, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil.

17. Why Biological Systematics ?

18. Biological Systematics is a scientific discipline that classifies, describes, names, and determine relationships among the Earth’s biodiversity.

19. HIERARCHICAL SYSTEM CATEGORIES TAXA Species Homo sapiens Genus Homo Family Hominidae Order Primates Class Mammalia Division or Phylum Chordata Kingdom Animalia

20. Homo sapiens is by nature a classifying animal. Our continued existence depends on our ability to recognize similarities and differences between objects and events in our physical universe and to communicate these similarities and differences linguistically.

21. It’s a mammoth. EARLY SYSTEMATICS

22. Classification systems are not unique. The challenge is to find good reasons to choose a particular solution.

23. Scientifically, one classification scheme is better than another if it: • is more fruitful in suggesting • scientific laws, and • generates better explanatory hypotheses.

24. A condition to produce a classification with explanatory power is the existence of a generative system responsible for the observed attributes.

25. A scientific classification should reflect the generative system. THE GENERATIVE SYSTEM OF BIODIVERSITY IS BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

26. THE GOALS OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 1- Discover the history of life (= phylogeny), and 2- investigate the processes that account for this history.

27. PHYLOGENY

29. Ovary Flowers Seeds Supporting tissues with lignin Conducting tissues

30. CAUSAL PROCESSES OF EVOLUTION • Mutation • Recombination • Natural selection • Genetic drift • Populations different species

31. - EVOLUTION EXPLAINS AND - SYSTEMATICS REFLECTS THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF SPECIES

32. Genetic relationships between organisms that arise through reproduction and that should play a major role in the delimitation of the species / Processes of evolution. SPECIES GENUS FAMILY ORDER CLASS DIVISION OR PHYLUM KINGDOM Phylogeny

33. During the last 30 years systematics has lost some credibility among scientists. “THIS WILL TEACH YOU NOT TO DO SYSTEMATICS”

34. A central misconception: Systematics is purely descriptive and consists only of observations.

35. Classification systems are • hypotheses of order in nature. • Scientific hypotheses go beyond • the evidence (observations) for • which they purport to account. • They have greater scientific • content (e.g., predictability) than • the empirical propositions they • cover.

36. Drosophila melanogaster Meigen Meigen’s hypothesis about order in nature has predictive and explanatory power that were used by geneticists, when they studied a few individuals and assumed that the results were valid for all the members (past, present, and future) of the species Drosophila melanogaster.

37. “Without systematic biology, ecologists and conservationists do not know which species exist within ecosystems, and cannot discover which are thriving and which are under threat of extinction... The science of systematic biology, therefore, is a vital discipline that underpins the conservation of the earth's biodiversity”. House of Lords – UK (2002) Select Committee on Science and Technology 3rd report

38. 1993

39. Sample standards (ages 6 -12) The study of biodiversity should include experiences with living organisms of diverse groups so that students can: - Distinguish living from nonliving. - Develop simple classification schemes. - Relate organisms to other organisms. - See themselves as part of Earth's biodiversity. - Realize that biodiversity is a vital part of our everyday life.

40. 2002

41. THE MAJOR GOALS OF “CLIMBING THE TREE OF LIFE” • Modernize the teaching of systematics in high school by using inquiry-oriented instructional methods; • use systematics to teach student about the nature and methods of science; • connect systematics with evolution; and • illustrate the personal and social implications of biodiversity and systematics.

42. National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, USA; draft version proposed for release in 2011). Emphasize inquiry-based instruction and focus on only four “core ideas” in the life sciences. One of the four is “biological evolution” and inherent in it, biodiversity and systematics.

43. Why “The Medium is the Message” ?

44. Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) Fellow RSC (1964)

45. We are especially in Marshall McLuhan’s debt for his restatement, in alliterative language, of John Dewey’s belief that “we learn what we do.” McLuhan means much the same thing by his famous aphorism, “The medium is the message”.

46. The best message would be inquiry-oriented activities that convey the major concepts of biodiversity and systematics.

47. 2008

48. ACCORDING TO Students who are proficient in science: • Know, use, and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world; • generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations; • understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge; and • participate productively in scientific practices and discourse.

49. 2008

50. Why the Need of a “Narrative” ?