The article provides a collection of teaching ideas about vertebrate animals. Ideas include making a poem book about a group of animals, rhyming words with animal names, and finding animal names in a puzzle. (DB)

Five experiments examined children's expectations about what might be inside animals and machines. Found that children had abstract expectations that guide their search for differences between animals and machines, and that 8-year olds had more concrete expectations than preschoolers. These results are consistent with an abstract-to-concrete model…

The use of anthropomorphism over a period of time and across cultures is discussed. Various examples are also given to illustrate the extensive use of this devise made by the different authors of children's literature to open a dialogue with their readers.

Transgenic insecticidal Bt crops are being increasingly used worldwide, and concern is increasing about resistance and their effects on nontarget organisms. The toxin acts as a weak pesticide and, hence, the effects are subtler than those of chemical biocides. However, the toxin is ever present, but concentrations vary with age of plant and plant…

In humans, episodic memory is most commonly defined as the subjective experience of recollection, presenting a major challenge to the identification of episodic memory in animals. Here we take the position that episodic memory also has several other distinctive qualities that can be assessed objectively in animals, as well as humans, and the…

A dynamic model for a single species fishery with stage structure is proposed using taxation as a control instrument to protect the fish population from overexploitation. Criteria for local stability and global stability of the system are derived. The optimal tax policy is established by using Pontryagin's maximal principle. By numerical…

A bioeconomic model is developed for the selective harvesting of a single species, inshore-offshore fishery, assuming that the growth of the species is governed by the Gompertz law. The dynamical system governing the fishery is studied in depth; the local and global stability of its non-trivial steady state are examined. Existence of a bionomic…

Rats received different schedules of pre-exposure to a compound flavor (AX) and to one element of that compound (X). In Group ALT, exposure consisted of alternating trials with AX and X; Group BLK received a block with all AX trials before a separate block with all X trials (or vice versa). Discrimination between AX and X was assessed then by…

Human beings share a world and its scarce resources with other intelligent creatures, yet humans act in ways that deny other animals a dignified existence. A discussion on why notions of basic justice, entitlement, and law can, and must be extended across the species barrier is presented.

Each year the members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee identify recent research findings that made the most impact on the field. For the 2009 Summary of Advances, the IACC selected and summarized 20 studies that gave significant insight into the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the biology of the disorder, potential…

Michigan State University embarked upon an initiative to explore deliberative dialogue as a tool for addressing community-based contested issues in agriculture and natural resources. Our goal is to assess the extent to which deliberative dialogue can help "bridge the divides" among citizens and professionals and fulfill the land-grant…

This article describes a research study in which a biologist and his research on Antarctic seabirds became part of an integrated science course for prospective elementary teachers. Students used the scientist's database on seabird chick growth rates for an experimental design investigation while the "regular" classes had a single science…

Disgust is a basic emotion that is thought to play a role in the etiology of certain types of specific phobias, like animal phobias. Two experiments were conducted in which 9- to 14-year-old children were exposed to disgust-related, cleanliness-related, and threat-related information about unknown animals. It was investigated to what extent these…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how multimodal assessment tools enabled Grade 2 students to show knowledge and understanding of wolves. The research design was a case study across three years employing descriptive statistics to portray student knowledge and understanding associated with the use of each tool. The findings indicate that…

Two-thirds of U.S. citizens do not understand the scientific process. There is a clear misunderstanding about what science is--and is not--both in our society and in the classroom. Furthermore, students below basic proficiency are locked into an achievement gap. In response, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001. Since then, there has…