Animals need the same things people do: air, food, water, and shelter. Each animal has different ways of fulfilling those needs. In this videotape, students explore some of the ways various animals stay healthy and full of energy. This videotape correlates to the following National Science Education Standards for Life Science: characteristics of…

Whether animals are herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores, each one is part of an eternal food chain that carries on from one generation to the next. In this videotape, students learn more about terms like "predator,""pre-consumer" and "producer," as well as the cycles of food chains and food webs and how they support…

Dinosaurs may be extinct, but reptiles are distant cousins to the beasts that once walked the earth. From snakes and lizards to iguanas and tuataras, children learn what factors make them different from other animals. In this videotape, students explore the mysterious, often misunderstood, world of reptiles and learn about their characteristics…

Discusses the anatomy and physiology of the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus). Includes comments on the habitat of and research studies using this organism. (JN)

Describes a study using two genera of aquatic insects that demonstrates how nonlethal falls in oxygen concentration affect the rate of surfacing of bottom-feeding Coroxidae and how this affects their survival by increasing their proneness to attacks by surface-feeding Notonectidae. (CS)

Instructions are given for care of the giant hissing cockroach, "Gromphadorhina portentosa" from Malagasy. Reproductive behavior is described, as well as development of the young roaches. (SA)

Describes methods for building a terraquarium that demonstrates the shore habitat. Includes photographs and a list of materials. (CS)

A rebuttle to the NSTA publication, "Safety in the Classroom" is given. Opinions of the author are substantiated by research and the references are included. (SA)

Outlines some misconceptions and misunderstandings that underlie most dissection conflicts with the aim of making the dissection issue less volatile and one that generates fewer difficulties for students, teachers, and administrators. Lists published surveys of students' attitudes toward dissection and other animal uses in education. Discusses the…

Presents a set of hands-on, outdoor science experiments designed to teach elementary school students about animal adaptation. The experiments focus on: how color camouflage affects an insect population; how spiderlings find a home; and how chameleons camouflage themselves by changing color. (SM)

Undergraduate students in a learning laboratory course initially chose a species to study; researched that species' physical and behavioral characteristics; then learned skills necessary to select, operationalize, observe, and record animal behavior accurately. After their classroom preparation, students went to a local zoo to observe the behavior…

One of the core competencies in the new IFT Education standards is for students to achieve competency in communication skills (that is, oral and written communication, listening, interviewing, and so on). According to the IFT guidelines, by the time students graduate, they should not only be able to search for and condense information, but also be…

Lesion studies indicate that rats without the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) have difficulty recalling fear extinction acquired the previous day. Several electrophysiological studies have also supported this observation by demonstrating that extinction-related increases in neuronal activity in the mPFC participate in expression of fear…

In this paper, we demonstrate nondeclarative sequence learning in mice using an animal analog of the human serial reaction time task (SRT) that uses a within-group comparison of behavior in response to a repeating sequence versus a random sequence. Ten female B6CBA mice performed eleven 96-trial sessions containing 24 repetitions of a 4-trial…

The terrestrial slug "Limax" has a highly developed ability to associate the odor of some foods (e.g., carrot juice) with aversive stimuli such as the bitter taste of quinidine solution. The procerebrum (PC) is a part of the slug's brain thought to be involved in odor-aversion learning, but direct evidence is still lacking. Here, the authors…