March 15, 2015

The National Science Teacher Association’s annual conference was held in Chicago this year. For us, it was a star-studded event!

The keynote speaker was paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin, who described his search and discovery of the 375-million-year-old Tiktaalik roseae fossil, a key transitional form in some vertebrates moving from water to land. Dr. Shubin’s book, Your Inner Fish, traces the evolution of the organs of the human body back millions of years. Dr. Shubin also hosted the movie series Your Inner Fish, which first aired on PBS and is available at HHMI’s biointeractive.org.

Movie Night! HHMI BioInteractive premiered two short films in the series Great Transitions about the origin of structures and creatures in the evolutionary history of life. Following the film was a question and answer session with evolutionary biologist Sean B. Carroll and vertebrate paleontologist Julia Clarke. Dr. Carroll, a renowned scientist, author, and educator, leads HHMI’s Department of Science Education and is an inspiration in his communication of science. Check out biointeractive.org for these films and other teacher resources!

After the conference, we were able to take a tour of the University of Chicago, where another one of our favorite evolutionary biologists, Dr. Jerry Coyne, teaches. His book Why Evolution is True, was one of the first books we read about evolution, clearly explaining the concept and the overwhelming evidence.

Another hightlight was visiting the Field Museum of Natural History - simply amazing.

And, since we were in Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day, we saw the Chicago River turn green!