OKLAHOMA CLIMATE/EVOLUTION NEWS–APRIL 2020

1.  Anti-science/pro-science education legislation is other states

2.  What It’s Like to Teach Sixth-Grade Science Over Zoom

3.  Earth’s insect population changes

4.  2019 was Europe’s warmest year ever recorded

5.  The first frog fossil from Antarctica has been found

6.  March 2020 continues hot start to the year

7.  “An Illustrated Guide” to help your students understand biology

8.  April videos

ANTI-SCIENCE/PRO-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES
Iowa–Iowa’s House File 2184 died in the House Education Committee on February 21, 2020, when a deadline for bills to be reported out of committee passed. If enacted, HF 2184 would have required the state board of education to adopt a code of ethics to prevent public school teachers in the state from engaging in what it described as “political or ideological indoctrination.”  More at NCSE.
Numerous states–NCSE reports that no fewer than 18 measures to support climate change education in the public schools were active in the statehouses of ten states so far in 2020. (Note that owing to the disruption of legislative activity by the COVID-19 pandemic, the status of these measures is not always clear.)  See the list at NCSE.

WHAT ITS LIKE TO TEACH SIXTH-GRADE SCIENCE OVER ZOOM
Piedmont school teacher (and NCSE Teacher Ambassador) Melissa Lau is featured in a Wall Street Journal article on distance teaching.  The article begins:On the first day of remote learning after Piedmont Intermediate School closed because of the pandemic, Melissa Lau, a sixth-grade science teacher, knew the planned lesson—on thermal energy and particle motion—wouldn’t resonate with her young students.
So she threw it out and started over.  See Wall Street Journal for more.

EARTH’S INSECT POPULATION CHANGES
In an AP story by Seth Borenstein, he reports that the world has lost more than one quarter of its land-dwelling insects in the past 30 years, according to researchers whose big picture study of global bug decline paints a disturbing but more nuanced problem than earlier research.
From bees and other pollinators crucial to the world’s food supply to butterflies that beautify places, the bugs are disappearing at a rate of just under 1% a year, with lots of variation from place to place, according to a study in Science.  The story was picked up by the Muskogee Phoenix.  In another paper in PLOS ONE, taking a big view of the so-called Insect Apocalypse finds some possible winners among the losers, plus a lot of things we don’t know yet.
Overheated end-times terms have popped up during the last few years conveying fear that the bounty of Earth’s butterflies, beetles, bees and many other insects has started slipping away. The worry is not just about species likely to go extinct. Even species that will probably survive might be shrinking in population so much that their skimpy numbers no can longer fill their current roles in ecosystems.
Now a new look at insect abundance, slanted toward North America and Europe, hints that freshwater residents are overall increasing.  Data mostly gathered since the 1960s suggests that beetles, mayflies, dragonflies and other creatures that spend a good part of their lives in water have increased about 11 percent per decade, says a study in Science April 24. In contrast, land-dwelling insects shrank in abundance by about 9 percent per decade, the study says.  More at Science News.  Original papers at Science and PLOS ONE.

2019 WAS EUROPE’S WARMEST YEAR EVER RECORDED
Last year was the warmest on record in Europe, with central and eastern regions seeing the hottest temperatures.,
The Copernicus European State of the Climate 2019 report comes on Earth Day, which started in 1970 to protest environmental destruction from oil spills, smog and polluted rivers.
Heatwaves across Europe last summer led to record-breaking temperatures in countries including France and Germany, often peaking above 40 degrees Celsius.
The report shows 11 of the 12 warmest years in a dataset running back to 1981 have taken place since 2000; unusually warm weather in February, June and July last year pushed 2019 ahead of previous highs in 2014, 2015 and 2018.  More at Politico.

THE FIRST FROG FOSSIL FROM ANTARCTICA HAS BEEN FOUND

The first fossil of a frog found in Antarctica gives new insight into the continent’s ancient climate.
Paleontologists uncovered fragments of the frog’s hip bone and skull in 40-million-year-old sediment collected from Seymour Island, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Scientists have previously found evidence of giant amphibians that walked Antarctica during the Triassic Period, over 200 million years ago, but no traces on the continent of amphibians like those around today. The shape of the newly discovered bones indicates that this frog belonged to the family of Calyptocephalellidae, or helmeted frogs, found today in South America.  More at Science News and New York Times.  Original paper at Nature.

MARCH 2020 CONTINUES HOT START TO YEAR
After February 2020 marked the end to the second-warmest winter on record, March 2020 decided to start spring off the same warm way, finishing as the second-warmest March on record, too. This keeps 2020 as the second-warmest year on record through the first three months of the year, easily on pace to finish in the top five of warmest years come December. Where’d this info come from? Well, it is just one of many highlights from the March 2020 global climate summary released by the National Centers for Environmental Information.  More at NOAA.  Original paper here.

“AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE” TO HELP YOUR STUDENTS UNDERSTAND BIOLOGY
“Hey, man, you draw well. Can you take a picture of that and send it to me?”
Those were the words spoken to NCSE Teacher Ambassador Jeff Grant by one of his students nearly seven years ago as he tried to explain a complicated concept using whiteboard drawings. Those words planted a seed, a seed that would eventually become a collection titled An Illustrated Guide to Biology.
The 121-page book, filled with drawings lovingly inked by Grant, covers the AP Biology curriculum with a special emphasis on evolution and on anatomy. Grant has found that the guide provides insights for his students that support, clarify, and reinforce his classroom instruction. And he wants to share this resource with any teacher who’s interested. More at NCSE.

APRIL VIDEOS
The Origin of FecesThe Darmstadtium Card
Welcome Dr Headroom!