The Origin of Life: Researching the Possibilities BBC Production BR

AP BIOLOGY VIDEO RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LISTSERVE The Origin of Life: Researching the Possibilities -- BBC production available through Films for the Humanities. Stanley Miller describes his theory and leading scietisats debate the strengths and weaknesses of this and other theories. My kids love this -- one time a student was unable to attend the showing in class and borrowed the video. Several students went over to view the film again at his house. Expensive -- but worth it.

The Biochemical Basis of Biology -- Two videos -- one on Cell structure and Energy Production and the other covers DNA and Protein Synthesis. Each video is broken into 4 parts of about 20 minutes. Carolina Biological.

The Biological Revolution: 100 Years of Science at Cold Spring Harbor -- Great introduction to Molecular and Classical Genetics for AP students. Lots of History and clips of scientists such as Watson, Crick, Hershey, Chase McClintock, Lurea. Carolina Biological

Francis Crick: Beyond the Double Helix -- Interview with Crick. Students very impressed with what this man did in addition to his DNA work. Carolina Biological

Web of Life -- Examines field of molecular genetics and the ethical dilemmas. Smithsonian Video available through Teacher's Video Company

The Miracle of Birth -- BBC video describing physiological changes occuring to woman's body during pregnancy. Not usual stuff - senior girl's in AP were very involved and interested. Available through Teacher's Video Company.

You may want to investigate the Cycles of Life series by Annenberg. There are about 26 videos. Each 30 minute video is divided into three 10 minute segment. They also have discussion questions and video overview included.

My favorite is called "Cane Toads", which has been reviewed as "if Monty Python made nature documentaries it would be something like this..." It is a good ecology lesson on what happens with introduced species who have no natural predators - and is simply hilarious. I'm pretty sure it is available at Amazon.com. Many of my students cite this as their favorite experience of the whole year!

My students tend to enjoy anything narrated by Richard Attenborough. His "Private Life of Plants" series is quite good. I often show excerpts, particularly when talking about xylem transport there is a good computer animation of water traveling up through xylem and out the stomates, I believe in the second part of the series. There are also wonderful clips of seed dispersal and pollination. This is pretty widely available.

The Nova video "The Universe Within" is quite good for the human body. It has four 15-20 minute segments, on bones/muscles/cardiovascular, digestion, immune and reproductive systems. Each one features an athlete and has great photography and animations to show the processes going on. The immune system one is particularly effective, with great computer animations of all the immune cells with "war" analogies. This is available from WGBH or most public TV catalogues or web sites.

One that the students enjoy a great deal but may be better suited to an environmental science class is "The Wonderful World of Dung" which is pretty much what it says it is. It talks about recycling what is in waste, in other words showing creatures eating each others' or their own dung. I tend to save this for a day before a holiday and feed them brownies while they eat it - my sick sense of humor I guess. I taped this one off the air - I think it was originally a BBC production. I'm not sure where it can be purchased.

There are lots of good genetics videos - the David Suzuki series The Secret of Life is quite good. I've shown the one about genetic engineering frequently - The Mouse Who Laid the Golden Egg. It's a bit out of date now, but still good. The Nova video Mystery of Anastasia is a great prelude to doing the Cold Spring Harbor Labs online activity analyzing the DNA of the Romanov family. (That activity is at vector.cshl.org - Look under Resources and go to Bioforms) The movies Gattaca and Lorenzo's Oil both have good genetics lessons and study guides have been discussed in this listserv previously. The dramatization of Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA is quite good as well, and study questions for that are available on line as well, I believe on Access Excellence. That video is called Life Story (previously released as Race for the Double Helix) and is available in most biology video catalogues.