Beacon Center for the Study of Evolution in Action

Get information, tools, and lessons to enhance your teaching of evolution! Our friends at the UC Museum of Paleontology have updated the Understanding Evolution website. There you’ll find a variety of new and classic resources, including:

• Online, interactive investigations, like The Arthropod Story for middle school students and Visualizing Life on Earth for high school and above
• A database of lessons vetted by experienced teachers
• Approachable background information in English and Spanish in the online textbook, Evo 101
• Student-friendly news stories that connect evolutionary concepts to current events
• Digging Data activities that engage students with authentic data from diverse scientists
• A trilingual, printable comic book connecting paleontology, mass extinction, and climate change

…and much more. Check it out at www.UnderstandingEvolution.org!

BEACONites - join the Reach Out Science Communication Challenge for NSF Science and Technology Center students and postdocs!

See info here about free workshops and the Science Slam competition: www.mos.org/reachout

https://youtu.be/aMlSFtAW9zA

Join the Reach Out Science Communication Challenge | Museum of Science, Boston Would you like to share your science with a wider audience?

Check out this great NPR ‘Short Wave’ podcast interview with BEACON Faculty Affiliate Adriana Briscoe about butterfly vision and temperature regulation and representation among STEM K-12 teachers!

Butterflies Have Hearts In Their Wings. You'll Never Guess Where They Have Eyes : Short Wave Adriana Briscoe, a professor of biology and ecology at UC Irvine, studies vision in butterflies. As part of her research, she's trained them to detect light of a certain color. She also explains why they bask in the sunlight, and why some of them have 'hearts' in their wings. Plus ... you'll never g...

If you do field research, it's important to engage with the local communities and stakeholders. A group of BEACONites share their experience with education and outreach work in the Galápagos Islands:

Engaging Galápagos Students and Educators in Evolutionary Activities | BEACON This blog post is by Madison Bovee, Alexa Warwick, John G. Phillips, Brant G. Miller, and Christine Parent. Evolutionary research is conducted across the globe, yet no location may be as emblematic as the Galápagos Islands (Figure 1). Made famous by Charles Darwin's visit in 1835, long term researc...

A BEACON related project is being featured on the 2020 STEM for All Video Showcase! Please vote for us!

ConnectedBio: Interactive Evolution Across Biological Scales Teaching and understanding evolution is a challenge because it requires students to make connections across a number of different biological processes and scales. The ConnectedBio Project, a coll...

Excellent piece by BEACON's own Adriana Briscoe on Latinx science and math teachers in K-12 public schools, the need for role models for POC students, and the impact that the end of DACA will have on our future pool of Latinx STEM teachers:

Latino STEM Teachers, DACA, and the Future of Teaching The visibility of a Latina scientist like NASA astronaut Ellen Ochoa in the media encourages me. The leaky pipeline for minorities in STEM does not.

Visitors can see over 3.5 billion years of evolution in action on the "Tree of Life" interactive touch screen at the MSU Museum! The interactive is part of the Evolution in Action Gallery supported in part by Beacon Center for the Study of Evolution in Action. museum.msu.edu

Congratulations to BEACON faculty affiliate Paul Turner, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences this week!

Paul Turner elected to National Academy of Sciences | BEACON Professor Paul Turner was elected to the National Academy of Sciences earlier this week (following his election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences two weeks ago). Paul Turner is a professor of of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and he joined BEACON as a Faculty Affiliate...

BEACONites representing in Baltimore at the NARST Conference. Presenting on Native Education and curriculum development.

Happy 75th birthday to BEACON Executive Director Erik Goodman!

Enter the 8th Annual Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival!
After a one-year hiatus, the Evolution Video Contest/Film Festival is BACK!
The winner receives $1,000 and "The Chucky" (the 1st-place trophy; see: evolutionfilmfestival.org/trophy). Runner-up receives $500.

For more information and to view previous years' submissions: evolutionfilmfestival.org
For details on how to submit: evolutionfilmfestival.org/how-to-submit
Questions? Contact Jory Weintraub ([email protected])

First Place Trophy Visit the post for more.

Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to three scientists who harnessed ‘the power of evolution’ -- hey look, it's spreading to other disciplines!

Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to three scientists who harnessed ‘the power of evolution’ The scientists created and improved biological molecules with a wide variety of applications, including pharmaceuticals and cleaning supplies.