Looking for Videos? Try these...
There is a paradox in ecology education. The fact is that most students are very interested in the diversity of life on the planet - that is why they take biology rather than chemistry or physics for their general education requirements. But, when most professors get to the biodiversity lectures, they run through an seemingly endless series of PowerPoint slides of different organisms. And to be honest with you.. PowerPoint slides are not all that interesting.
So, how do you get across the wonder of life, and the importance of biodiversity, if you are confined to a series of jpeg images captured off of Google? The answer, of course, are videos. There are some great videos out there - Life (Discovery Channel), Great Migrations (National Geographic), and Planet Earth (Discovery Channel) - just to name a few. But most of these are too long for use in a traditional classroom, and most instructors want to focus on a specific animal.
BBC Nature has put together a tremendous resource for teaching biodiversity. It is called the BBC Nature Wildlife site, and it not only contains a downloadable tree of life, but also links to information on plants, fungi, and animals.
But perhaps the best asset on this site are the for the animals. There are videos for almost every type of animal, from the cnidarians to the vertebrates. All of these videos bring the animals to life, and portray them in their natural environments.
But what about extinct animals? How about a video of Archeopteryx narrated by David Attenborough?
There are videos on Neanderthals, and prehistoric amphibians and reptiles. Many of the videos (like the Archaeopteryx video above) many easily be embedded into any course management system. Each group contains a link to the Tree of Life Web Project - a site that is rapidly becoming an invaluable resource in science education.
So if you are looking to engage your students.. check out the BBC Nature site and see what happens
Posted by Michael Windelspecht at 16 Jun 2011, 7:14 PM 
Categories: video, websites, animals:vertebrates:invertebrates, biodiversity
Tags: teaching BBC videos
Categories: video, websites, animals:vertebrates:invertebrates, biodiversity
Tags: teaching BBC videos
One caveat - many of the BBC videos (at least in my hands) are not available for distribution in the US. I was particularly disappointed that the one describing the misconception (which persisted into the 18th century) that barnacle geese hatch from goose barnacles is not available
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I agree Bruce - unfortunately not everything is there. I know that, at least for National Geographic, they are working on a similar site and that videos are constantly being added, so maybe the BBC will add more here as well.
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