Thursday, January 24, 2008

Guest Speaker at Mills High!



Guest speaker Louise Mead of the National Center for Science Education came to speak to Mr. Olson's science classes on January 24, 2008. She taught the students about evolution and what she did at work. She taught us how we and other animals have evolved through time and how we evolved.

She described how there is four main processes or mechanisms of evolution and these were
1.) Natural selection
2.) Genetic Drift
3.) "evo-devo"
4.) Mutation.

She presented a PowerPoint slide showing how species of humans, salamanders, and whales evolved.

She explain how the world has proven that there is evolution
1.) Biogeography (Distribution in fossil records and comparisons)
2.) Anatomy (Similarities in limbs and bones)
3.) Biochemistry and Biology (Studying chromosome # and DNA sequences)
4.) Fossil Record (How fossils are distributed)
5.) Development biology (Gene Comparison)

The presentation was very interesting, but sadly there was not enough time to finish the presentation.