Hi Declan, Fabulous. And thank you for the resource. I will be using it again this coming spring with some high school biology students. One of the students is also studying statistics; I'm looking forward to discussing his ideas on what we might want to test, statistically.
Alison On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 10:22 PM, Declan <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > I mentioned a resource I was considering some time back; it is now up and > running. > > Applicable to biology/zoology/evolution/stats courses. Cheap, hands-on, > hypothesis-driven lab activities. > http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Coyote > The current summary: > > - A virtual museum of carefully photographed, calibrated coyote skull > images. > - Still growing, but with 36 skulls from 12 US states and 1 Canadian > province, I think the resource is ready for use. > - Measurements accurate to within 2mm (more typically 1 mm) can be > taken from the photographs. > - Students can test some hypotheses immediately: > - H1: Eastern coyote skulls are larger than those from the west. > Published literature confirms that the eastern population includes DNA > of > wolf origin. Body weight measurements are larger in the east. But do > the > skulls confirm the pattern? > - H2: Northern skulls are larger than southern skulls. Bergmann's > rule would suggest this hypothesis. We have enough material online to > quickly test this. Once our Texas skulls are added we will have a more > robust data set available. > > > - Statistics students hungry to generate their own data could use the > collection as source data for regression and ANOVA. > > The future: > > - Our total collection of coyote skulls includes 60 skulls and we > intend to upload all of them as time permits. We are slow in uploading > because the calibration check on each image takes time, but we'll add 2 to > 4 per week until May. > - We have a modest collection of 24 domestic dog skulls that we will > add. This will serve to compare variation in a naturally selected > population Vs an artificially selected population. > - We'd love to see a parallel set of skulls from another wild > population (the 2 populations of black-backed jackals? dingos?). If there > is a curator interested in digitally sharing a collection please let me > know. > > How can you help? > > - Use the resource and give us feedback > - Donate images of skulls from your collection (our Kansas skull is > one such donation). > - Develop and share laboratory exercises using the collection. > - Send us skulls of known origin to be added to the research > collection (non-cleaned skulls should be frozen to kill insect pests and > sealed in plastic bags before shipping; let me know they are coming > [email protected]). If you have arbitrary skulls gathering dust we'll > put them to good use in our general teaching collection: Dr. Declan McCabe; > Biology Box 283; Saint Michael's College; Colchester VT 05403; USA Trades > considered also. Our New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona skulls were gratefully > accepted donations. > > WE folks: thanks for your support and hosting this project. > > Declan > > -- > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > > > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
