Charlie's Playhouse blog

Meet Safa, five-year-old skink expert

2011-03-21T06:04:00.018-04:00

Imagine you are five years old. Come on, feel that crayon in your hand.

One day, your mom tells you about lerista skinks, these Australian snakes that used to have legs but evolved to lose them. This evolution happened so fast -- only 3.5 million years! -- that there are still several old species of skinks crawling about, some with complete legs and toes, some with fewer toes, some with just stump legs and so on. It's a living parade of transitional forms.

The crayon gets itchy, doesn't it? You want to draw some skinks, right?

Well, that's what happened with young Safa, the winner of our Evolution & Art Contest in the 4-6 age category. When Safa heard about the skinks from her mom and about the contest from us, she put everything together brilliantly. Instead of four-legged lizards evolving into legless snakes, she imagined the reverse: snakes evolving to have legs. What kind of environment would lead to that? She picked up her crayon, expertly.

Her entry has two panels. The first shows the original snakes in their grassy environment. The second, helpfully labeled as "one million years" later, shows the evolved four-legged lizards in a rocky environment where legs make it much easier to move around. Perfect!

Here's our interview with Safa.

Kate from Charlie's Playhouse: I love your evolved snakes! How did you come up with the idea of using snakes and moving them to a rocky land?

Safa: Mom showed me a picture of lizards turning into snakes, so I decided to turn snakes into lizards. I wanted to do something with legs, and rocks are hard to slither on.

Kate: Your snakes evolved in three ways: color, antennae and legs. How did you think of these?

Safa: I chose gray because it is easier for them to hide and the cave is gray and the cave is their home. I chose antennae to help them if they fall on the rock. I chose legs, so they could walk on the rocks.

Kate: You know a lot about evolution, especially for someone who is just five years old! Where did you learn about evolution?

Safa: From a library book and some things my mom told me.

Kate: Do you know who Charles Darwin was? If you could travel back in time and visit with him, what would you like to ask him?

Safa: I have a book about Charles Darwin but I haven't read it yet. I would ask him things about evolution, snakes and tigers.

Thanks, Safa! You've got a great imagination, and a great future in art and science.

Meet Delaney, whose monkey charmed the world

2010-12-17T05:41:00.007-05:00

We got fifty entries to our Evolution & Art Contest. The competition was fierce, it was dog-eat-dog. In the 7-9 age category, our judges had a magnificent clown fish, stick insect and snow grouse to choose from, among others.

In the end, Delaney's monkey charmed everybody.

Delaney is nine. For her entry to the contest, she imagined that some monkeys got stranded on an island with a different environment than they were used to. Their new environment had "hard nuts, quiet predators, and purple bushes and trees." What would happen after, say, a million years? How would the monkeys evolve?

Delaney's evolved monkey has sharp teeth (to crack the nuts), huge ears (to hear those quiet predators) and purple polka-dots (to hide in the purple foliage.) Perfect examples of adaptation!

Here's our interview with Delaney:

Kate from Charlie's Playhouse: How did you come up with the idea for your contest entry?

Delaney: Well, I made up my island first. I thought it could be anything at all. I knew it had to have a different habitat, different food and everything for the monkey. Then I looked at what the island had and saw how the monkey could blend in. I added the adaptations.

Kate: Did you think about using another animal?

Delaney: Yes, I thought about a flamingo or a pig. A flamingo would be hard. It might have changed its legs so it could run faster. A pig would be like a vampire pig because it would get the sharp teeth! But I really liked the monkey. It was easier to adapt because it has a lot of features that are able to be changed.

Kate: How did you learn about evolution?

Delaney: My dad started telling me about it. I got really interested, and I asked questions. When I ask my dad a question, I always get an answer. Also, once after a trip he brought back your Giant Timeline, and I like to look at it. He also tells me what other people say about evolution, like at the dinner table.

Kate: Cool! Last question. If you could travel back in time and visit with Charles Darwin, maybe go to his study and have tea with him, what would you want to talk about? What would you ask him?

Delaney: I would want to ask if he knew he wanted to be a scientist when he was a kid. Did he have the idea as a kid? Also I would ask about all the stuff he saw on his trip: what he saw in the ocean or something flying or what he thought was interesting. What he thought about those birds with the different beaks, and if he thought that was evolution, or if he would have to think about it.

Kate: I wonder if he knew when he was a kid. What about you? Do you know what you want to be?

Delaney: I want to be a paleontologist or archeologist. You get to see the animals of the past, and the fossils are actually their bodies. It's like looking at them alive!

I love this part about the finch beaks: "if he thought that was evolution, or if he would have to think about it." Yes, he did have to think about it. He had to think about it FOR TWENTY YEARS. That's a long think.

Thanks, Delaney!

Meet Abby, 11-year-old biology prodigy

2010-12-15T14:01:00.011-05:00

Here's the story of a kid who truly, deeply loves biology and whose parents have been wise enough to get out of her way. Prepare yourselves, people, the kid is amazing.

Abby discovered biology as a tiny tot, when she fell in love with David Attenborough documentaries, especially one featuring disgusting parasitic insects. Go girl. Her pretend play with animals soon filled up with biological jargon so thick that her parents couldn't understand what the heck she was talking about. Now she is taking a biology course on the late high school/early college level. Yes, she is 11.

Welcome to our interview with Abby, winner of the Evolution & Art Contest in the 10-12 age group.

Kate from Charlie's Playhouse: We loved your entry about the st ar-nosed moles!

Abby: Thank you. I did a bunch more entries too, but I chose the moles. I've always had a "thing" for star-nosed moles. They're cute! I also did a water buffalo, a kangaroo and a polar bear.

Kate: Oh, so you evolved all those animals in your mind and drew pictures of them?

Abby: Yes. I like to play a game with my mom when we're walking together. She names an animal and I evolve it for a new environment, usually to make it cuter. So it's easy for me to think of how animals evolve. I did the star-nosed mole with her one day.

Kate: How did you first learn about evolution?

Abby: Well, I was a dino freak when I was little. I knew all the dinosaur names, and I loved the little mammals that lived with the dinos. I wanted to learn how the little mammals from that time came to this time.

Kate: So what did you do to learn about that?

Abby: My dad would go to the library and get a bunch of books on mammals and evolution. Then I would draw them all. I realized that I could take every one of those mammals, and just using the powers of time and adaptation, I could make a totally new animal!

Kate: Cool. Can you give me some examples?

Abby: I like to imagine a domesticated fox, mountain lion, and prairie dog. They get cuter when they're domesticated.

Kate: So let's see. They're wild animals, and you imagine how they might evolve to be domesticated. So what's their new environment?

Abby: A house!

Kate: Oh, nice. So do you know what natural selection is?

Abby: Of course I know what natural selection is! I'm taking a high-school biology course! Also I'm such a book-lover, I read about it all the time.

Kate: OK, last question. Let's imagine that you could travel back in time and visit with Charles Darwin at his home in England. You're having tea in his study. What would you want to talk about? What would you ask him?

Abby: Oh! I do that a lot, travel back in time in my mind to talk with people from history. Mostly with Jefferson.

Kate: Really! So what about Darwin?

Abby: I would ask him how much courage it took to actually get his ideas out into the public. To think that far away from the mainstream. That's what I admire about him.

Kate: Anything else you'd like to add?

Abby: Yes, I have an imaginary world where all my made up animals live. I'm a scientist in that world, studying them. I have radio collars and video cams on nine of the animals, and I collect information about them. The males have some terrifying fights over food and territory!

So there you have it, folks. She's collecting data from the field. Abby, we await your findings!

P.S. Parents tell me that entering the Evolution & Art Contest was a fun learning activity even apart from the contest. So feel free to grab a kid, download the instructions here, and see what happens! We're always delighted to see kids' work if you'd like to send it in.

Happy holidays all around.

Winners of the Evolution & Art Contest!

2010-12-01T13:58:00.012-05:00

Oooh, so cool. In this contest we asked kids to think of an animal alive today, imagine a bunch of them stranded in a different environment, and draw a picture of how the animal might evolve to fit its new environment after a long time.

And boy, did the kids think, imagine, and draw! We got fifty entries, all of them magnificent. Painful as it was, our judges managed to select a winner in each age category. Big, happy congratulations to them all!

(Oh, and look for interviews with each winner on this blog in the coming weeks...)

Age category 4-6 winner:
Safa, age 5

Safa imagined that some snakes that live on grassy plains were moved to a rocky island with few plants. After a million years, Safa's snakes evolved legs to move about on the rocks, antennae to sense predators better, and a grey color for camouflage.

There's much more art and science to Safa's entry! See it and the judges' comments here.

Age category 7-9 winner:

Delaney, age 9

Delaney started with a monkey and moved it to an island with "hard nuts, quiet predators, and purple bushes and trees." Her drawing of the evolved monkey included no less than three adaptations, which turned the judges purple-polka-dotted!

See Delaney's full picture and the judges' comments here.

Age category 10-12 winner:
Abby, age 11

Abby started with some star-nosed moles and imagined them in a rocky environment with only insects to eat. Her entry came complete with two pages of field drawings and notes, as well as a scientifically impeccable essay on how the moles adapted over time. Wow.

See Abby's full entry and the judges' comments here. Don't miss her life-sized "poo guide!"

Big, happy congratulations also to our finalists, who each received honorary mentions:

Age category 4-6 finalists:

Adara, age 4, owl
Brooke, age 5, elephant
Jack, age 5, penguin
Jayda, age 5, T-Rex

Age category 7-9 finalists:

Betsy, age 9, clown fish
Erin, age 8, snow grouse
Kerria, age 7, stingray
Liam, age 9, stick insect

Age category 10-12 finalists:

Haly, age 10, thorny devil
Lachlan, age 10, lion
Meryl, age 12, bilby
Michelle, age 12, owl
Truth, age 10, great white shark

And of course big thanks to all the other kids who entered, who have all received a personal certificate of appreciation from Charlie himself. We're so glad you entered, and loved your drawings. Once we get permissions from everyone's grownup, we'll post them all online for the world to see.

Oh, and also: Everything is on sale at our site! Check it out.

Dear "Earth" magazine: Thanks, and also not so much with the thanks

2010-11-14T18:20:00.006-05:00

It all started a few days ago. I got a confusing call from someone asking why the Giant Timeline Play Mat is not $19.

Huh?

Turns out that the December issue of Earth magazine mentioned the Giant Timeline but misprinted the price. Earth is the flagship publication of the American Geological Institute, and covers "the latest happenings in earth, energy, and environment news." It has a readership of about 50,000. Wonderful, magnificent, count me in. I just wish those 50,000 didn't have to tango with this typo.

So, if you're an Earth reader, here are my two pleas:

1. It's $39 these days, not $19. Sorry. I do have other stuff for about $19. (See my Amazon storefront.)

2. Can you scan in and email me a copy of whatever coverage they gave to Charlie's Playhouse? I can't lay my hands on the December issue. I even sneaked in to the Brown University science library to find it but they don't have that issue yet. I'm desperately curious to see it.

Thanks. It's not $19.

Kids just get natural selection (Chapter II)

2010-11-04T12:08:00.007-04:00

Caleb (6): "Mommy, why does the cat always rip apart the couch like that?"

Me (43): "That's how he sharpens his claws."

Caleb: "Why does he need to sharpen his claws?"

Me (seeing an opportunity to wrangle the conversation over to evolution): "Well, why do you think?"

Caleb: "Because cats are hunters? They can get more mice with sharp claws?"

Me: "Right! And what can the cats who get more mice do?"

Caleb (sensing that Mommy is off on her whole Darwin kick again): "Ummm... natural selection!?"

Me: "Well, sort of, but how would that work? If you're a cat whose belly is always full and you feel good, do you think you'd live longer or shorter than another cat who can't really catch mice?"

Caleb: "Longer, yeah! The ones with sharp claws are awesome!"

Me: "And then if you're living longer and healthier, what might you be able to do?"

Caleb: (Stultified expression)

Izzy (9, eavesdropping): "You have kittens, Caleb! And the kittens have sharp claws just like you do! And then they can get more mice and be healthier."

Me: "Right, and it all leads to us having a shredded couch."

Caleb: "Hooray!"

Irresistible contest entry

2010-10-20T13:55:00.004-04:00

We've been getting some pretty spectacular entries to our Evolution & Art Contest. Kids imagine an animal in a new environment and draw us a picture of how that animal might evolve. Grab a kid and enter! You could win some great prizes.

Now, we can't show you any of the kids' entries before the end of the contest (December), but this one is just too magnificent to keep under wraps.

One Natalie Ross of Eastham Massachusetts, 78 years old, officially petitioned the Charlie's Playhouse Complaint Department that our activities exclude older people. Maybe some grownups would like to imagine new animals and make a nice drawing, did we ever think of that!?

So the Complaint Dept. issued her special permission to make a nice drawing. Here it is for all to see, along with her masterful explanation of how the strange creature she chose might evolve to fit a new environment:

Charlie, a species of Homo Erectus, finds himself on a desert island where there is only strange (but nourishing) food high up in tall trees, and the only predators are dangerous stinging ants, very poisonous. After a million years Charlie evolved a long neck in order to reach the fruit, and very short legs to make it easy to swat away the ants.

Bravo, Natalie, thank you! You definitely win the 78-year-old age category.

Does Steven Pinker have kids? He should.

2010-10-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

World-renowned psychologist Steven Pinker of the brilliant mind and ridicu-tastic hair was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann the other night. He was chatting about, of all things, reasons to teach kids evolution. I'm all ears, Steven.

You can watch the whole interview here, but to me this is the interesting bit:

Olbermann: Why is it so important that we teach kids evolution?

Pinker: "There are some practical reasons. Some of the greatest technological advances of the next few decades are going to be in the biological sciences. And you can't do biology unless you understand evolution. There's going to be a race between us and the superbugs, the viruses that are going to attack us. Their big weapon is that they can evolve fast. If we don't have a generation of science students and scientists who understand evolution, we're not going to be able to understand our worst enemies. Also, great advances in diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are often going to come from research on other animals because you obviously can't give cancer or give Parkinson's disease to a human. You can to a mouse. We have to understand what the relationship is between a mouse and a human in order to interpret that science.

But also, what could be more fundamental than knowing where we came from? The theory of evolution is one of the most magnificent intellectual accomplishments of our civilization. It's a tragedy to deny children of the evidence, the line of argumentation, that led to this magnificent achievement in this essential bit of knowledge to understanding who we are and where we came from."

Ah, masterful. I love both his points but I have to say that the second one is my favorite: why deny kids the magnificent story of the evolution of life?

New podcast with Kate at Parenting Within Reason!

2010-10-06T12:20:00.003-04:00

Listen here!

If you're wondering what the heck we're listening to: I was interviewed last week by Colin Thornton, host of a terrific podcast on secular parenting. The repartee was frothy, the ideas were pithy, and as usual I got all political and worked up about evolution education. Give it a listen!

Thanks so much, Colin.

Announcing our Evolution & Art Contest!

2010-09-15T09:30:00.006-04:00

Our awesome new contest is for kids age 4 to 12 who love drawing, science, animals, or weirdness. In other words, everybody.

We're asking kids to choose an animal alive today, and then imagine how it might evolve if it were in a different - and possibly funky or weird -- environment. What might happen to polar bears after a couple hundred thousand years if, say, snow were green? How might they evolve to adapt? Draw us your evolved animal and voila, you're in!

Every kid who enters will get a certificate of appreciation signed by Charlie himself. The winners in each age category will get prizes: an interview on this blog, a book of their choice, a fancy-shmancy Certificate of Greatness, and bragging rights forever.

Oh, and we've got a great panel of judges including both kids and adults.

So sharpen your markers and your imaginations, kids! We can't wait to see your entries.

More info and instructions on how to enter here.

Dealine is November 15th.
No purchase necessary.
(I hate even having to say "no purchase necessary." What kind of putz would make a purchase necessary?)

Some super-cool research

2010-09-11T08:06:00.005-04:00

What's the best way to teach kids about evolution? Great question.

Here at Charlie's Playhouse, we answer it like this: "Hey kids! Let's all jump around with some freaky creatures and oh man, isn't evolution COOL!?"

Does this approach actually work? I don't know, call me later on that. But it definitely makes kids' eyes light up, and it's definitely fun.

But our friends at the Concord Consortium in Massachusetts are taking the question, shall we say, a bit more seriously. They're developing a computer-based evolution curriculum for the 4th grade, funded by the National Science Foundation (yes, that's our tax dollars, hooray!)

The curriculum is interactive, accurate, and both simple enough and complex enough to engage young minds. Here's a sample screenshot -- see the mountains dividing the populations of flowers? Aha, speciation!

The research is now in its second of three years. See more details and a research update here.

Thanks, Concord Consortium!

Who needs aliens? We've got sea dragons.

2010-08-25T07:01:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I forget how mind-blowing life on Earth is. It just slips my mind. Then I see something like these sea dragons and my mind is freshly blown. Gather your kids and take a look.

Check out how well-camoflagued these creatures are! Kids, the ones that weren't shaped just like the plants around them were spied by predators and gobbled up. Only the ones that are shaped like the plants can hide well, avoid the predators and have some babies. And look at that! The babies look just like them!

Also, it's the male sea dragon who carries the eggs. Wow. There must be some survival advantage to that, just like being shaped like the plants. I don't know what that advantage is, but I bet your kids could come up with some great hypotheses. Enjoy.

Thanks, BBC!

Our first hate mail! (This post not for kids)

2010-05-31T06:43:00.005-04:00

Since the idea of Charlie's Playhouse first crossed my mind, I've been dreaming of hate mail. Expecting, hoping and longing for it. Would my little company be spunky enough to truly piss someone off?

And now it's here! My first scrap of hate came in an email:

I HATE EVOLUTION ITS F***ING STUPID BITCHES MADE THIS UP DAMN WHAT STUPIDS A**HOLE SCIENSTIST WE HAVE U DONT KNOW S**T

I'm so proud. Yes, the all-caps is original, as are the typos. I did have to add the asterisks myself, but if you fill them back in, you'll get the full glory.

I wish it were longer, and I wish I could recite it to my kids. But it's mine. I earned it, and I will cherish it. A milestone for Charlie!

Help me design a summer contest & I'll send you a T-shirt

2010-05-18T14:16:00.007-04:00

I'm itching for a contest to run. Got any ideas?

The "Ask The Kids" project last year was a blast, and we made many new friends -- who can forget "people monkeys" or "the evolutionary war?" So I'm trying to come up with the next funky way to get kids thinking about evolution.

Summer vacation is coming up. Hmm, summer... kids will be outside a lot. They'll get a zillion mosquito bites at the corner park. They'll go camping. They'll catch frogs down by the pond. They'll watch the fireflies come out at dusk, and maybe get freaked out by a slug.

While they're out there, maybe we can get kids to see the natural world the way Darwin did: with delight, with close attention, and with wonder at the relatedness of things. What's a good contest design that will help them do that?

Maybe we can ask kids to keep an eye out for the coolest/weirdest/most adapted creature they see over the summer and send us a photo or draw us a picture.

Or maybe we can give kids a simplified Tree of Life and ask them to locate the creatures they encounter this summer on it. Or better yet: pick two creatures they meet and figure out how they are cousins.

Or maybe we just ask kids to enjoy their experiences in nature and write a poem about it, along the lines of these poems about nature and evolution for kids.

There should be some kind of creative entry for each kid, something we can post on the web and celebrate. It should be easy enough for little kids to take part, but also open-ended enough that older kids can get more elaborate. And as always, it can't be a pain in the butt for parents.

There should also be a reward for kids participating or winning. A prize or two of some Charlie's Playhouse products probably, or maybe an entry into a raffle. Or something else.

These ideas are early and vague. I could use some help, so I'm tossing it out there for input from you, my loyal reading public (hi, Mom). Any suggestions?

And hey, if we use your idea for the contest I'll send you a t-shirt of your choice! Rock on.

Azoospermia. I'm just saying.

2010-05-11T11:57:00.006-04:00

Here's a weird idea to mull over, a strange cocktail of evolutionary forces, medical advances, logical necessity, and a tiny little bit of sperm. If your kids can handle it, invite them on in to the discussion.

It goes like this:

1. Evolution favors animals that can reproduce, obviously. The more you reproduce, voila, the more of your genes are represented in the next generation.
2. Infertility can be inherited, such as azoospermia (inability to produce sperm) resulting from cystic fibrosis or other congenital problems.
3. Thanks to the advent of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and similar treatments, "infertile" people can now have whole passels of biological kids tearing around their back yards.
4. These kids may carry on the "infertility" genes, and as adults they may need assisted reproduction as well.
5. And so on over generations and generations.
6. Here's where things go off the rails a bit. What's to stop infertility becoming the norm? And what is "infertility" if everybody who is azoospermic, for example, has as many kids as the next guy? And will we evolve to a species that can't reproduce without extraordinary medical intervention? And would everyone's life be better that way?

As I swig this cocktail, I can hear the objections already.

"But Kate, the prevalence of infertility is low, and almost nobody has access to those fancy IVF procedures. This will never have any large effect on the course of human evolution, and genes for infertility will never rise to any appreciable proportion in the population!"

To this I say a resounding "Perhaps!" But cast your mind into the future. Infertility affects at least 10% of the population (and probably much more, don't get me started on that point.) That's a lot of uteruses we're talking about.

And in only about thirty years, IVF and other such machinations have gone from high-media spectacles to routine health care that's increasingly covered by health insurance across the country. In Europe, infertility treatments have been fully covered for decades. In Denmark, nearly 4% of all births in 2006 resulted from IVF. Four percent! That number can only get higher, I think. IVF is becoming increasingly common even in low-resource populations with high fertility norms, like India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Also, success rates for infertility treatments are ever-rising. These days, an "infertile" couple getting IVF now has a far greater chance of conceiving than a "fertile" couple going at it the old-fashioned way for the same amount of time. Now who's infertile?

So I'm thinking: a good proportion of the population is using common, affordable means to overrule their own infertility. Over the long term, this is not negligible. Drink up.

Here's another objection I can hear:

"But Kate, medical intervention has slowed down human evolution in a thousand ways already. People who never would have survived or reproduced 100,000 years ago now can do both. Your example is just one of many!"

Again I chug my cocktail and say "Maybe!" But don't you think there's something truly strange about a gene for infertility no longer being selected out? You can't get much more paradoxical than that.

Anyway, azoospermia and IVF. I'm just saying.

Re-imagining your mom

2010-02-22T12:18:00.008-05:00

Hey kids, ever wonder how your mom and dad can see what you're doing behind their backs? How did they know that you fed your lima beans to the dog when they weren't even looking?

Well, scientists have dug up a 100-million-year-old fly that might just have the answer. It looks just like a regular old fly except that it has a horn on top of its head WITH THREE EYEBALLS ON IT. Yes, three eyeballs.

It probably used its rear-view eyes to watch out for predators, like this:

Looks pretty handy, right? Well, I want to propose that some homo sapeins (those called "Mom" and "Dad") have actually evolved a similar structure in the backs of their heads, like this:

Aha! So that's how we do it!

Caleb (age 5) has done a careful search of the back of my head and concluded that I have no unicorn horn with three eyeballs on it. It's a serious challenge to my claim. We welcome other evidence.

Hey Junior, let's talk about drugs, not science...

2010-02-15T05:18:00.003-05:00

So let's say you're a parent of a teen. This teen faces the standard teen problems: acne, a fresh-baked sex drive, stoner friends who have discovered pot, and science homework.

Let's also say that by some miracle this teen gives you fifteen minutes to actually talk about one of these problems. Which one do you, the parent, raise? Acne's pretty easy to talk about. Sex, well, most wouldn't like to go there with kids (though I am an enthusiastic exception.) How about drugs? Most parents are pretty uncomfortable with that too.

How about that science homework? Do we want to raise that with Junior? A survey shows that parents are generally more comfortable talking with their teens about drugs than about science homework. Yup, that's right, science homework makes parents more squeamish than pot.

Oh, this makes me crazy. Please, everyone, have your teens and their science homework shuffle self-consciously over to my house. We'll take care of it.

The study hints that parents are uncomfortable with science homework because they don't understand the science themselves. But I wonder why parents don't feel comfortable saying, "Gee, Junior, I have no idea what the hell your physics teacher is talking about either. Let's work it out together."

Maybe we hate physics, or maybe we're just tired and need a stiff drink. Well, that's fair enough. But maybe the real reason is that we don't want to appear stupid, and fear that we couldn't figure the science homework out if we tried. This reason is a big big mistake, in my humble opinion.

I think the scientific method is a terrific parenting tool. Here's how it works: we're trying to figure out some phenomenon, call it X. Mom offers some explanation of X (hypothesis) Junior says, "But wait, that can't be right because of this or that experiment we did in class." (hypothesis testing) Mom says, "Oh, you're right." (hypothesis rejection and teen victory) Junior says, "Maybe it's this other explanation." (revised hypothesis) Mom says, "I just read this bit in your science textbook, and I think you're right." (literature review and second teen victory)

Here's what the teen takes away: Mom isn't afraid to be wrong. Mom isn't afraid to say "I don't know." Mom is open to hearing what other people -- even pimply teenagers -- have to say on the science. Now just replace "Mom" with "the scientific method" in those sentences. What a wonderful gift to our kids, and to parent-teen relations.

Of course, in my view we need to have these sciency chats long before the teen years. I love giving my five-year-old the upper hand in scientific discussions, and lately I have to say that he genuinely outsmarts me. Proud mama.

So how about you?

Where have we been?

2010-02-04T13:00:00.001-05:00

You may be wondering: Where the heck is Kate? A new children's book on evolution was just released, the movie about Darwin's life is now showing in more cities and Darwin Day is coming up fast. No blog posts from Charlie's Playhouse? No Facebook updates, tweets or newsletters from the evolution lady?

The truth is, I'm at a standstill. My big brother Matt died of cancer on January 25th at age 46.

Why is this news for you, someone who likes Charlie's Playhouse but has never met Matt? Here's why.

Time was, I had a decent career researching women's reproductive health. Inexplicably, I also itched to leave that career to make evolution toys. Matt loved the idea and we talked about it often, tossing around game designs and ways to present evolutionary ideas to kids.

I tried to talk myself out of starting this business, but Matt's diagnosis was a kick in the pants. If Matt, or any of us, could be diagnosed with terminal cancer tomorrow, why not take the road that brings the most joy? Why not do the thing that will make Matt and me laugh together for the last few years of his life? Matt tended to choose the oddball path in his life, and he inspired me to take mine. So if it weren't for Matt, Charlie's Playhouse wouldn't exist.

Thanks for that, Moose. I'm so damn lucky to have been your sister.

OK, now that's off my chest and I'll return to chipper evolution-related updates, I promise.

New scavenger hunt questions for your Giant Evolution Timeline!

2010-01-12T14:07:00.003-05:00

Got a Giant Evolution Timeline? Great. Then you've probably seen the scavenger hunt questions on the back.

Yesterday I wrote up a bunch more questions for someone who asked about them, and here they are for you! Just print them out, hand them to your kids, and see what happens. (Keep the answers under your hat though.)

Scavenger Hunt Questions for the Giant Evolution Timeline
mya=million years ago

1. When did the first dragonflies appear?
2. What was the biggest freshwater fish ever?
3. How long was an Arthropleura?
4. How long ago did the Earth form?
5. How many legs and spikes did Hallucigenia have?
6. Find three kinds of Trilobites.
7. What did the fish Climatius have that the earlier fish Arandaspis didn’t?
8. What is a mass extinction?
9. Find an animal who had lungs for breathing air and gills for breathing in water.
10. When was the biggest mass extinction ever?
11. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
12. Find two animals that survived through a mass extinction.
13. Find the first mammal ever.
14. In what period did the first dinosaurs appear?
15. Find four mammals.
16. Find two animals with super-long necks.
17. Find a distant cousin of humans.
18. How long ago did Homo Sapiens evolve?

Answers

1. 300 mya
2. Rhizodont, at 340 mya
3. 6 feet long, find at 320 mya
4. 4.5 billion years ago
5. 14 legs and 14 spikes, find at 540 mya.
6. One each at 510, 300 and 260 million years ago.
7. Jaws. Find at 460 and 420 million years ago.
8. Defined at 440 million years ago
9. Acanthostega, at 365 million years ago
10. The Permian extinction, at 250 million years ago.
11. The egg. See Archaeothyris at 300 million years ago.
12. Diictodon, 240 mya, and Purgatorius, 60 mya.
13. Morganucodon, 210 mya
14. Triassic
15. Nine total on the timeline: Morganucodon at 210 mya, Megazostrodon at 190 mya, Purgatorius at 60 mya, Glyptodon at 20 mya, Aegyptopithecus at 20 mya, Pakicetus at 20 mya, Megatherium at 2 mya, and Blue Whale and Homo Sapiens at today.
16. Three on the timeline: Tanystropheus at 220 mya, Brachiosaurus at 180 mya, and Elasmosaurus at 130 mya.
17. Aegyptopithecus at 20 mya, see Charlie’s comment about it.
18. 130,000 years ago, see Homo Sapiens at today.

Bonnie and Grace explore evolution

2010-01-01T08:48:00.008-05:00

Here are Bonnie (older girl) and Grace (younger girl) exploring their Giant Evolution Timeline on Christmas morning. Mom, Dad and Grandma seem to be hooked too...

Grace walks through time!

Antonio, so happy

2009-12-29T07:21:00.002-05:00

Here's Antonio's reaction when he opened a Giant Evolution Timeline and Creature Cards on Christmas morning. Though the audio is hard to hear, he yells out "AWESOME!" (Thanks to Michelle for sending it in, we love it.)

Get'cher free Evolution Flip Book!

2009-12-18T06:45:00.005-05:00

Angela over at one of our favorite blogs, Satori Smiles, is giving away some Evolution Flip Books for free. You just have to comment to be entered in the raffle. Check it out!

She's a funny chick, that Skepchick

2009-12-16T13:26:00.007-05:00

The Evolution Flip Book made it onto the holiday gift guide over at the Skepchick blog. Yay!

And Rebecca Watson, the skeptical chick herself, captioned the Flip Book picture like this:

Watch something evolve just by flipping through the pages! Try to avoid creationists asking “WELL THEN WHO IS FLIPPING THE FLIP BOOK AND WHY ARE THERE MONKEYS?”

Love that. Thanks, Rebecca.

Can kids tell earthworms apart?

2009-12-08T17:21:00.005-05:00

Here's how it went with Caleb (5) and me (42).

Me: Hey, Caleb, I have a question for you. Let's say there's a bunch of giraffes, grownup giraffes, some boys and some girls. Do you think those giraffes are different from each other?

Caleb: Yeah, they're different.

Me: Really? How?

Caleb: Their spots, they have different spots. And their necks too! Some are longer than others. Oh, and their personalities.

Me: Hmmm, cool. What about earthworms? Remember those earthworms we dug up last summer? Do you think they're different from each other?

Caleb: Nope. They're all exactly the same.

Poor earthworms. In Caleb's world they just don't vary at all. That's gotta hurt, especially when you're trying to evolve to adapt to changing conditions.

After reading this psychological research recently, I've been thinking about whether kids *get* variation within species. It's so important to understanding evolution later, but I guess kids naturally think of animals as having specific traits that can't vary. All lions roar in just the same way, all mice have the same whiskers, and if you mess with that, well, you're not talking about lions or mice anymore, Mom.

(Nerd Note: In other words, our brains default to the essentialist view. It's a terrific advantage for language development, but a terrific roadblock to understanding "species" as a probabilistic concept.)

So my new kick is: Let's point out variation within species to kids. It's amazing how often it comes up now that it's on my mind. Just today, the centerpiece of our cafe table was several bamboo shoots in a vase. How different each shoot was from the others, when we looked closely! And then we had some cookies.

So my little interview with Caleb gave me hope. Those giraffes vary, hooray! I have a hunch that variability is easier for kids to get the closer they feel to a species. I bet any kid with a dog or cat can name precisely how their pet is different from any other member of the same breed. But when it comes to earthworms, well, they're just weird. And exactly the same as each other, apparently.

If you talk to your kid about variation, let us know how it goes.

We got the Seal of Approval, baby!

2009-12-07T10:37:00.005-05:00

Ok, this one made me a wee bit nervous. The National Parenting Center only gives out its Seal of Approval after an eight-week process involving a formal testing facility, some strict criteria, fancy statistical analyses, and a critical bunch of kids, parents and educators. Oh, the rigor.

So I was delighted to discover that their testers loved the Giant Evolution Timeline, hooray!

Great Dads agree: the Timeline is way cool

2009-12-03T11:27:00.005-05:00

I love dads. Dads in general and specific dads. And of course, my particular dad (Hi, Dad!)

Well, it turns out dads love us back.

The Giant Evolution Timeline has been named a "Recommended Product" by GreatDad.com, hooray!

Are you a dad? Then you qualify to go vote on GreatDad.com and let them know that, yes, you would also recommend the Giant Evolution Timeline to other dads. Give as many stars as you can!

Thanks, dads. And Dad. Love you.

Holiday sale starts Monday!

2009-11-27T16:23:00.005-05:00

We here at Charlie's Playhouse embrace crass holiday commercialism. In fact we consider it a clever adaptation to our environment. Survival of the most heavily discounted, right?

Announcing our 3-week holiday sale
November 30th through December 21st

Giant Evolution Timeline Play Mat 25% off!

Giant Evolution Timeline Poster 25% off!

Ancient Creature Cards 25% off!

Evolution Flip Books 20% off!

Hope to see you Monday...

Providence College waters down its teaching staff

2009-11-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

Much to the chagrin of tuition-paying students at Providence College, I took over a marketing class last week and prattled on for a while about the business end of Charlie's Playhouse and evolution for kids.

I had a terrific time. What a pleasure to have a group of smart people think about Charlie's Playhouse for a while!

The man and woman to my left in the second photo here were simultaneously signing my talk for the students. Wow, I loved that part. Sign language is so lyrical, just beautiful.

Thanks so much to all the students in the class (below) for lending me their time, and especially to Tiffany Hogan (at left below) for inviting me.

Kids in the UK get an evolutionary treat

2009-11-21T07:31:00.004-05:00

How magnificent is the UK? First, the entire nation drinks tea incessantly, much as I do. Second, my splendid dad was born and raised there. Third, it produced our big man Darwin.

Well, it gets better, folks.

Earlier this month, the UK government announced that evolution will be included in their new national science curriculum starting at the elementary level. Yes, that's right, the elementary level, as in kindergarten. And then first grade. And second. And third, fourth, fifth, until everybody is just as comfortable as can be with the history of life on earth.

Oh my. I am nerdy enough that this gives me goosebumps (which, by the way, have an evolutionary history that would captivate any kindergartener.) Any kids out there want to move to London with me?

Don't listen to me, listen to the professor

2009-11-18T05:47:00.004-05:00

Colin Purrington is both an associate professor of biology at Swarthmore College and a one-man force for revealing the fun, wacky, irresistible side of evolution. He's a national treasure.

I love his blog, Axis of Evo (subtitled "Silly projects that might increase acceptance of evolution"), and while I know this is bad form for bloggers, I just have to re-post here something he wrote yesterday. It's just so exactly right:

"I view creation stories as a critical part of how religions transmit themselves to the next generation. Creation myths that appealed only to adults wouldn’t last long, I think. ... This underscores the need to teach science to really young kids, since that is the age when kids are actually interested in where rocks, plants, and humans come from. Even if the details are a tad too complex for the youngins, teaching kids that the scientific process can help us find real answers is a good goal for elementary science lesson plans. Waiting to inject kids with a love of science in middle school is fine, but it’s a bit too late."

Hear, hear! Thanks, Colin.

Kids just get natural selection

2009-11-10T09:27:00.003-05:00

Ah, the bird feeder, everyday model of natural selection. It's right there out the window as we chew our Cheerios in the morning.

Yesterday Caleb (5) said, "Look at them fight, Mommy! The birds are fighting over who gets to sit on the perch and eat the food." Dozens of little brown birds are fluttering around the feeder, all the same species. Then Caleb jumps up and does his best full-body imitation of the battle, which I must say is pretty impressive.

"Why do you think one bird wins and another bird loses?" I ask him. He thinks it over.

"Maybe the bird who is on the perch knows that the next bird wants some food, so he just moves away," he says. We peer out to see if that fits. Soon he says, "No, that's not right, look. The losers aren't moving away nicely, they're fighting with their wings. They just lose the battle."

"Hmm," I say, "so I wonder which birds usually win?"

"The ones with the stronger wings, to beat up the other guys!" He yelps and repeats his truly moving battle recreation.

"Wow, so that means the ones with the stronger wings get more food?" I ask.

At this point, Izzy (8) can't stand it anymore and says, "Of course they do! And because they get more food, they can have more babies. And those babies have strong wings like them. Get it, Caleb? It's so easy."

An unusually well-expressed email

2009-11-06T11:10:00.006-05:00

I get emails. Wonderful, enthusiastic emails filled with questions or product ideas. I love them.

Yesterday I got one that perfectly describes an experience that many have written to me about. So I decided to post it here. Jodi wrote:

"Part of my panic with teaching my son about evolution, I've found, is because I was never taught evolution myself in a way I could really explain it to anyone - my son doesn't take simple answers! Then I realized the whole subject was glossed over in school for me. I brought this up to one of my son's teachers, he attends a Montessori school, and she said that a lot of parents have to teach evolution at home because it's "controversial." I was actually shocked to hear that. That's just not right - it's science!

Anyway, so since it looks like I can't leave it to the schools to teach this, I've been doing my homework and now know more about Darwin than I ever thought I would! I truly do appreciate having a great kid-friendly tool to be able to help explain things to my very inquisitive kid. And I combed through your book reviews and found a few of those recommended at our library so we've been reading those as well and I very much appreciate the time you put into that."

See why I love my inbox? Thanks so much, Jodi.

I had just the same experience trying to find resources on evolution for kids, which is exactly why I launched Charlie's Playhouse. Anyone have the same experience?

Our wicked awesome new project: Ask the Kids!

2009-11-03T12:23:00.006-05:00

Ask your kid one question and get 20% off!

The 150th anniversary of Darwin's amazing book "The Origin of Species," is coming up this month. To celebrate, we're starting a conversation about evolution with kids everywhere.

We're asking parents to pose one question to their kids:

"What is evolution?"

and let us know the very first answer. As thanks, we're offering a 10%-20% coupon, and will also recommend great books and websites to help with a chat about evolution for kids.

Kids' first thoughts are wonderful -- charmingly wrong, spot-on accurate, or revealing what is really important. ("Evolution is candy," said one 3-year-old.)

We'll weave their answers into a short, fun video and release it to the world on November 24th, the 150th anniversary of "Origin of Species." Your kids will be the stars!

So go ahead. Grab a pencil or video camera, and ask the kids!

More info at the Ask the Kids home page. Deadline is November 16th.

We're on the COVER, baby!

2009-10-27T12:22:00.004-04:00

Beyond the Blackboard, an educational supply company in Colorado, just released its new catalog and --

oh my --

what is that? --

could that be? --

is that a Giant Evolution Timeline on the cover!?

Why yes, yes it is!

Those folks at Beyond the Blackboard sure are savvy, intelligent, street-smart and probably very good-looking too.

Here's the Timeline in their web catalog. They're selling it for 5 cents less than I am on my site. Hmmm, anybody up for a price war?

When is "evolution" not evolution?

2009-10-24T05:30:00.008-04:00

So you're looking for toys or games about evolution. You casually go online and -- whammo -- you find about a thousand kids' products that use the word "evolution." Hooray!

But look closer, friends. Zillions of fun products use the word "evolution," but they aren't talking about the history of life or science. Here's a sampling.

1. Evolution Board Game: Designed for teens, this involves trivia, charades, and drawing challenges. Nothing about the science.

2. Pokemon: These little guys and their friends "evolve" from one form to another. But it's not about the evolution of life, it's more like maturing: as each individual critter grows, its features change.

3. Star Wars: This package is called "Clone Wars Evolutions Pack - The Sith Legacy." Enough said.

4. TGS Evolution Bones Ripper Multisport Helmet: Rock on, dude, awesome skull!

5. Evolution Dude Rides #007: My personal favorite. Seems to be a green jalopy pickup truck with a high-tech rocket launcher in the back. Yee ha!

Oh no! They Might Have been Wrong!

2009-10-22T09:18:00.003-04:00

Back in May we posted the big news about Ida, a fossil that supposed to be a long, long lost ancestor of ours. There were skeptics and now experts are saying Ida's not even close to a relative.

it turns out that Ida is more closely related to lemurs. We'll keep you posted as Ida's story unfolds.

A Giant Timeline in its natural habitat

2009-10-16T12:16:00.002-04:00

Shhh....

Be careful not to disturb these small, cute homo sapiens as they interact with the Giant Evolution Timeline in their natural habitat: the playroom.

Behavioral anthropologists please note: the Timeline seems to inspire happiness and snuggling.

(Many thanks to Trudi for the stunning wildlife photography.)

Oh my. Two more awards.

2009-10-14T10:48:00.003-04:00

The wonderful Tillywig program in Illinois has awarded the Creature Cards with a "Top Fun" award and the Giant Evolution Timeline with their "Brain Child" award!

Check out the winners' page here. (Scroll down for our entries.)

Hooray, we are so happy!

Where is God?

2009-10-12T11:34:00.002-04:00

We got this message from someone on our website the other day:

"I have read some of your resources and was just wondering where is God in your Philosophy? Do you not believe in a higher power? Just curious."

Here's what I wrote back:

"Thanks for your note and your question. We're just presenting science to kids, so we don't really have any position on religion. All our products can be used from any number of religious or nonreligious perspectives.
Best wishes,
Kate"

Another award! Kumbayah.

2009-10-06T11:42:00.002-04:00

Hooray for Dr. Toy!

She just named the Giant Evolution Timeline one of the Best 100 Toys of 2009 AND one of the Ten Best Socially Responsible Toys of 2009!

See her press release and her Charlie's Playhouse entry. Thanks, Dr. Toy, you're the greatest.

Move over Lucy - Here's Ardi!

2009-10-01T14:22:00.002-04:00

Lucy has been dethroned as the oldest human-like skeleton. Discovered in 1974, scientists believe that Lucy lived more than 3 million years ago. She was quite the catch at the time as her discovery showed evidence similarities in brain size to that of an ape, and yet evidence of upright walking like that of humans. At the time, scientist were psyched to see new evidence that bipedalism, walking upright on two legs, happened before an increase in brain size on the path of human evolution.

But now there is Ardi, a 4-foot,110-pound female discovered to have lived more than 4.4 million years ago. Ardi has shown scientists that humans may have evolved not from apes, but that both humans and apes may have evolved from a common ancestor 6 or 7 million years ago, however, their evolutionary paths split long ago. Read more about Ardi here and here, and catch a refresher on Lucy here.

Mission : Plankton

2009-09-29T07:25:00.002-04:00

Over in the UK, they had staged a re-enactment of Charles Darwin's departure at the beginning of the month. A lot of the original HMS Beagle crew came from the Plymouth area, and some of their descendants were part of the re-enactment. It's cool that the past (over 150 years!) can be so easily connected to today.

The re-enactment also launches a new scientific mission, which will be filmed and broadcast on Dutch and Belgian television. The mission of this voyage is to gauge how plankton is coping with climate change and pollution. It may seem odd to monitor tiny little algae, but this algae creates a lot of oxygen and plays a huge part in the food chain. So if the plankton isn't doing well, the fish won't do well, etc etc etc. It's an important project, and needs the attention that this celebration will bring to it.

Also, John Malkovich will be there.... and you know it's important if Mr. Malkovich attends.

Darwin's Voyage Blogified

2009-09-26T08:20:00.000-04:00

Here is an interesting piece of history that has been given a social media twist. The Voyage of the Beagle takes entries from Charles Darwin’s daily journal and sets them up like a blog; complete with pictures and maps.

Although we’re big fans of the science of it all, the personal accounts of the discoveries and the daily routine that this captures are intriguing. This online, modern day format lends a perspective that reading pages and pages of text just cannot create.

It’s the little things are as so fascinating – His reaction to the increasing heat; his appreciation for sunset and moonrise; that he was not impressed with the Cape Verde islands (But, remember, this was back in 1831, and I'm sure Cape Verde is a beautiful place to visit today).

You couldn't travel very easy back when Charlie was going halfway around the world, and the description of the journey reminds us of what an awesome adventure it really was!

There are stories of people that had not seen Europeans yet, stories of horrible storms and shipwrecks, and of tropical jungles teeming with life.

It’s amazing that such insight came from a very long (and dreary) journey by boat.

Darwin Endless Forms

2009-09-24T07:19:00.001-04:00

I intended to mention this earlier, but summer time seems to slow my brain and make it hard to concentrate... but there is an exhibition going on in Cambridge –(anyone have an extra plane ticket?): Darwin Endless Forms takes a look at Charlie's effect and influence on the art world.

To think that Charlie's idea started to come around when the idea of art was changing is pretty interesting. No longer was art needed to recreate the real world (camera's could do that), but artists could create their own version of the world. I think that the idea of evolution could have helped free art, and artists, from the existing, old world structure. Art for art's sake.

This site offers a wonderful social media companion to the exhibit – a podcast series, an online photo album and the chance to participate in an online “Darwin-themed” book club! There is also the ‘Entangled Bank,” an interactive opportunity for you to learn where participants are encouraged to follow how life changes over time by observing plant life and documenting the change by taking pictures and submitting them to the website.

Have you gone to this exhibit? We'd love to hear your take!

New science tunes from They Might Be Giants!

2009-09-03T11:46:00.004-04:00

Ah, the giant genius of They Might Be Giants. Their new CD, "Here Comes Science," is an anthem of science-love for children.

On Amazon, you can preview the song "Science is Real," which explains to kids the difference between stories and science. Oh yes it does, and very well too.

On Youtube, you can see the video for "I am a Paleontologist," which uses the word "evolution" loud and proud.

I just can't wait to get my copy. The CDs ship Sept. 8th from Amazon.

Why is your brain huge?

2009-08-19T09:14:00.002-04:00

In the last, oh, about two and a half million years, the human brain exploded in size and we became big old smartypants. Scientists are trying to figure out why.

A new study says that it might have to do with temperature. Brains, as you know, are busy all the time, cells constantly buzzing and electrical signals flying. As they work, brains get really hot! And it's hard to cool off, especially since they are encased in bone.

Before the last Ice Age, when temperatures were higher than today, humans had brains about half our size. That was about as big as they could get in the warm temperatures without overheating and frying themselves to a crisp. But as the Ice Age came along and temperatures fell, the problem of overheating brains eased up. Now brains could get bigger without getting too dang hot. Bigger brains came with all kinds of benefits, like outsmarting the neighbors, figuring out how to keep warm, and generally surviving better.

If bigger brained people survived better and had bigger brained kids, and then if those kids went on to have bigger-brained kids, and so on, then a couple of million years later -- voila! -- your huge brain!

One terrific poem

2009-07-27T12:44:00.002-04:00

Natural Selection

proceeds by chance
and necessity

becomes nonrandom
through randomness

builds complexity
from simplicity

nurtures consciousness
unconsciously

evolves purposelessly
creatures who demand

purpose
and discover

natural selection

By Alan Shapiro, p. 449-450 in The Poetry Anthology, 2004, ed. by J. Parisi & S. Young. Many thanks to Tom Webb for sending it to me.

PREPPING: The big awards party is tomorrow night!

2009-07-22T08:50:00.004-04:00

In case you haven't heard through my incessant self-promotion, Charlie's Playhouse has been named a "Best of Rhode Island 2009" by Rhode Island Monthly magazine!

Big fancy party tomorrow night. Red carpet, awards ceremony, local media, the works. I'll also find out the timeless mystery: what category did I win? They don't tell you unless you show up.

Today's agenda includes a hair cut. Possible eyebrow intervention. Trying on those pants.

More to come tomorrow....

BONC #9: Bird Lizard Antler?

2009-07-10T10:17:00.001-04:00

We all know about pterosaurs, right? They were those huge creatures with skinny leathery wings that flew over the dinosaurs' heads. On the leading edge of their long wings, pterosaurs had bony hands sticking out, which let them walk and climb on all fours when they were on the ground.

Now here's nyctosaurus, a pterosaur with a difference. It had no hands on its wings, so it couldn't climb or crawl -- scientists think that it rarely ever landed on the ground, staying afloat in the air for most of its life!

How on earth did it do that? Well, nyctosaurus has these huge long bones coming out of the top of its skull, like antlers on a moose. These bones were the frame for a big flap of skin that worked like a sail on a boat! With their long wings and head sail, these creatures were basically parasailing all day, every day. Cool, dude! f324r8wkvm

Wake the kids! We won an award!

2009-07-10T07:44:00.007-04:00

We've been named a "Best of Rhode Island 2009" by Rhode Island Monthly magazine! Woo-hoo!

The August issue will have a photo and blurb, and in a couple weeks I get to go to a fancy party and hobnob with Rhode Island royalty. Red carpet! Dancing! Martinis! Lobstah! A one-hour documentary by the local ABC station!

Holy moly, what do I wear?

Here's the fun part. The magazine doesn't tell winners what category they won until the party. I'm pretty sure it's not "Best Italian Restaurant" or "Best Car Wash." Previous categories have included "Best Family-friendly Comedy Night" and "Best Hassle-Free Yacht Ownership." They make 'em up every year.

Any guesses on what my category will be?

"Best Plucky Startup?"
"Best Family-Friendly Geeky Science Thing?"
"Best 18-Foot Meticulously Illustrated Evolutionary Timeline?"

Our government actually funded this research

2009-07-03T09:17:00.005-04:00

Nobody talks to little kids about evolution. Adults treat it like a hush-hush topic around anybody younger than, say, 12. And in school? Fugeddaboudit.

But wait! Along comes the Concord Consortium, a research group in Concord MA that is studying how best to teach evolution to 4th graders. Yes, that's right, 4th graders, otherwise known as nine- or ten-year-olds.

Oh, it's magnificent. They have a computer-based curriculum that will be tested in twelve classrooms around the country, and they'll check to see how well kids learn from it. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, which blows my mind. One tiny little branch of our government is actively supporting evolution education for young kids!?

Best of all, the investigators are incorporating some Charlie's Playhouse products into the curriculum. Hooray! This feels like the ground floor of some large edifice with "The Future" carved on top in big letters.

Next week I'll attend a training session at Concord with all the teachers from around the country. Stay tuned for more blogging from there....

BONC #8: Big Little Things

2009-07-03T07:00:00.003-04:00

Here are some great examples of huge versions of species we know pretty well today...

This would be great at your Fourth of July clambake.... The freshwater sea scorpion Jaekelopterus rhenaniae probably lived approximately 390 million years ago was estimated to be over 8 feet long. The Jaekelopterus is a cousinof the Pterygotus, which you might recognize from your Giant Evolution timelines!

Or this thing, which isn't that old (11000 years). Doedicurus was the largest known glyptodontid. It was 5 ft tall and about 12 feet long. Dodicurus is very close to Glyptodon, which is also on the Timeline.

These next two animals should be pretty familiar to you.

How about an 8 foot long centipede? Meet the Arthropleura, the largest land invertebrate of all time! There are no fossils of its mouth so scientists have no idea what it ate!

Or a pretty dragonfly with a 3ft wingspan? Say hello to the Meganeura. They make scary movies about things like this! The Meganeura is the largest known flying insect.

And we’ve found one more, a favorite, the original giant shark. Megalodon would have swallowed Brody, Quint and Hooper in one bite.

BONC #7: Ollie vs. The Teratorn

2009-06-29T06:53:00.004-04:00

Imagine a basset hound, let’s call him Ollie, older, moves pretty slowly, but still chases birds around his yard. He's probably never caught one, since the little guys fly away fast (probably laughing at him). Luckily, Ollie didn't live 6 million years ago, because back then, some birds didn't play nice.

Meet "the magnificent Argentine bird", also known as the Giant Teratorn, which lived approx 6 million years ago. This was the largest known bird to have ever existed. Check out these stunning figures:

Length - 11ft

Weight - up to 180lbs

Wingspan - up to 26ft(!!!)

Ollie probably weighs 80lbs, and would have made a great snack for this master of the skies. I'm glad that we don't live in Miocene Argentina!

The greatest kids ever

2009-06-19T06:11:00.004-04:00

Imagine being a kid running around at a toy industry trade show. Cool, cool, awesome, and cool.

Awesome and cool for me too, when I met a few of them at ASTRA. I swear I did not bribe them or their parents, but they went nuts for the Giant Evolution Timeline. Sooooo wonderful to see.

Meet the brother-sister power team of Keller and Simone. They matched up all the Creature Cards in record time, they played Don't Squish the Creatures and Switch!, they sketched their favorite creatures, they dragged their parents back to the Timeline a hundred times, and they generally rocked the house. Keller seems to know everything there is to know about ancient creatures -- I had a very hard time stumping him!

And here's proud mom Patricia and dad Hans.

Here's Solomon and his sister, who rides a mean wheelie sneaker. They also played a great game of matching the Creature Cards, and Solomon lingered long and returned often to chat and read more on the Timeline.

Yikes

2009-06-16T17:02:00.003-04:00

Phew. The show's already over and I haven't been able to blog until now. Such a good day!

Made a whole bunch of actual genuine sales to living, breathing toy store owners who paid with actual, unexpired credit cards (see some happy buyers, left). A whole bunch more interested retailers took my price sheet and made encouraging noises about buying later. And a parade of random kids came by and -- unprompted -- demonstrated the awesome thrill of evolution. Love that!

Most importantly, I am floating in a sea of information, advice, inside scoops, tips, ideas, and energy. Great people all around. Yee haw.

Cajoled a big-time consultant to give me an hour or two of his time tonight for free. Yee-haw again.

while I have a second...

2009-06-15T17:21:00.004-04:00

1. It's hard to get people to walk on the Giant Timeline. They all step around or over it.
2. People who say they will come back later, don't.
3. Several other vendors and I have agreed on our collective and individual awesomeness.
4. Diet Coke is good.
5. When kids come by, life is goooooood and I get a crowd.
6. The greenwashing here is beyond all imagination.
7. The truly green products here are impressive.

Made a sale, and my feet don't even hurt yet

2009-06-15T13:43:00.003-04:00

Lots of interest, several people milling about and chatting, several buyers asking for my price sheet. Retailers from New York, New Jersey and California in particular seem very interested, no surprise there.

Got my first "We're not interested in evolution," with a sniff.

The down times (like right now) are so very welcome. Diet Coke!

So many of the products in the other booths seem like carbon copies of each other. It all starts to look the same after a stroll down an aisle. Not the Giant Evolution Timeline of course!

How much will I sell? Place your bets!

2009-06-15T08:24:00.006-04:00

Getting ready to go charm the socks off some toy buyers.

About 400 buyers are attending, representing some 200 stores. How many of those will make the soaring, brilliant, and powerful decision to carry Charlie's Playhouse products? I am offering them 20% off -- think of it, twenty percent off! -- if they place a wholesale order right here, right now.

Here are the predictions so far:

Caleb (age 5): "All of them! Millions!"
Izzy (age 8): "Well, don't be offended, but maybe like 10?"
Lawrence (age 38): "You'll do great, honey."
Me (age 42): "I like Caleb's vote."

My neighbors have candy

2009-06-14T20:01:00.009-04:00

The booth is set up, people. Here's the before picture:

And a couple shots of the after. Please note the bathroom man/woman peeking over my booth. My first potential customers!

And here are my neighbors, all charming people. Some have little bowls of candy. I ate some.

Off to the shmooze session.

I'm blogging ASTRA, and nobody can stop me

2009-06-14T16:32:00.005-04:00

Just arrived in beautiful downtown St. Paul for the American Specialty Toy Retailers Association trade show. Here are the things I have so far:

1. A hotel room
2. A nametag
3. Two boxes crammed with product, banners and brochures
4. Some hope
5. Some skepticism
6. A very nice new acquaintance whose name I've already forgotten
7. Tea

Just now heading over to the exhibit hall to set up my booth. I am mightily outclassed by the other exhibitors, but I will present that as irresistible homespun charm. Selling begins tomorrow morning at 9 am sharp.

More soon. Brought my camera, so be on the lookout for photos of the action.

Crazy Plants and Animals on isolated Socotra Island

2009-06-05T07:14:00.007-04:00

We all know the Galapagos Islands, right? They're really far away from anything else, and their plants and animals are bizarre, not to be found anywhere else on Earth.

Well, meet Socotra Island, plopped in the Indian Ocean and cut off from the nearest land for 18 million years or so. And yup, it's got bizarre plants and animals not to be found anywhere else. Check these out!

Dragon’s Blood tree, or Dracaena Tree.

Picture courtesy of www.latimes.com

Looks like something from a Super Mario Brothers video game, doesn't it? The name comes from a red resin that seeps from its bark when it is cut.

And here's Dorstenia gigas, which can grow to be 8 feet tall, and has exploding pods that fling its seeds several feet away.

Dorstenia gigas Photo from Flicker.com posted by jan_vandorpe

And Desert Rose, which is also called the Bottle Tree. Check out that trunk! It's used to store water in the dry climate.

Desert Rose; photo from latimes.com

Who knows what other isolated islands hold such creatures to be discovered!

Socotra Island is a recent addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

A New Game of Life

2009-06-04T07:04:00.004-04:00

Imagine a small drop of water. Inside that drop is a world of little critters living their lives, looking for food, and making other little critters.

Well, now you can actually see this (and take part in altering the enviroment) www.swimbots.com offers a cool little game/simulator where you can watch some virtual organisms live, reproduce and evolve right on your desktop.

Do you feel bad for the hungry litle pink squiggly guy over there? Well, grab a speck of food and drop it into his tiny mouth. Do you feel that there isn't enough food for all the animals? You can adjust the settings making it a friendlier place (or tougher, depending on how you want this little world to proceed).

The first session I opened, which I didn't manipulate too much, lasted about 2 hours before everything had died. Everything. So, for the second try, I made food more plentiful and actually "hand" fed some of the animals. That was 4 days ago, and although the population is a little thinner, a balance has been reached where everything is going along smoothly. Some of the original variations have gone extinct, but that seems to be the point. Survival of the fittest.

BONC #6: Everyone's crazy about this fossil!

2009-05-19T14:24:00.004-04:00

Here she is! They call her Ida. She's a dog-sized mammal that lived 47 million years ago, and boy is everyone excited about her. She was just introduced to the world today and already has her own huge website, her own full-length TV movie, and I'm sure someone will soon come up with an Ida dance craze, Ida sneakers or an Ida-flavored ice cream.

What's the deal?

Well, they say that Ida is our ancestor, which means she is humans' great-great-great-great (keep saying great about a zillion times) grandmother. She is an early primate, but also has some very human features, like fingernails instead of claws and a special little bone in her foot that you have too. Oh, and she's also really well preserved, with even some of her stomach contents still hanging around (so we know what she had for lunch right before she croaked.)

Because of Ida, we're now even more clear than ever on how humans -- you and me -- evolved from earlier primates. The human story just keeps getting better and better!

A real-life kid learnin' some real-life evolution!

2009-05-18T07:29:00.002-04:00

They said it couldn't be done. They said "Aw, don't bother talking to young kids about evolution, they just can't grasp it." But aha, they were wrong! We have proof right here in the form of delightful 4-year-old Satori, answering questions from her mom Angela using the Giant Evolution Timeline. Check out her accurate and full-body understanding of the sequence of evolutionary events! Go Satori!

This video makes me weep with geeky & maternal happiness. Yes, it is true.

You can read Angela and Satori's review of the Giant Evolution Timeline and see more pictures at the Satori Smiles Blog.

PS. I don't know Angela or Satori personally. This is not a plant! Oh, and many thanks to them both for permission to use the video.

Charlie's harmonies: Songs about Darwin!

2009-05-16T07:00:00.001-04:00

So there's this composer in Britain named David Haines who writes songs about Darwin and evolution for kids. His songs have sweet, classical melodies wrapped around topics like the Beagle's voyage or the life of a cell or evolution's wonders. He calls it a "science oratorio." At this website, you can hear some of his songs, read the words and watch huge choruses of children singing them.

I like Haines' songs and I think he deserves a very fancy medal for spreading the story of evolution to kids through music.

That said, I think there's room for lots more Darwin music! We need some funky, groovy, catchy, irresistible, parent-friendly music about evolution. Any musicians out there need a project? I've already got my eye on some of you....

Anybody live in Minneapolis/St. Paul?

2009-05-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

I'm getting my act together and taking it to Minneapolis/St. Paul in June. I've got a table at our first-ever trade show, the American Specialty Toy Retailers Association. From what I hear, it will be a whirlwind three days of nonstop product promotion and caffeine consumption. Heck, maybe I'll even make a sale or two.

If anybody out there lives in the area, come by and say hi!

Fun cartoon of the earliest life

2009-05-12T14:14:00.004-04:00

Ever wished that a cute, talking water molecule named Piccolina would tell you the story of the formation of our planet and the origins of life? Well, wait no further. A group of European universities have put together just such a thing, with a bunch of other evolution-related resources too. And when you're finished watching the video in English, you can watch again in French (c'est formidable!) or German (ausgezeichnet!)

Hey - A walking seal!

2009-05-05T13:38:00.003-04:00

About 24 million years ago, which really isn't all that long ago when you think about it, there lived a seal that looked a lot like the seals we can see today. But instead of flippers this seal had four legs! Check out what he might have looked like (drawing from the Canadian Museum of Nature.)

This guy was named Puijila Darwini, which means "Darwin's young marine mammal." Yup, he was named after our very own Charlie.

Take any mammal that lives in the sea, like seals, whales and dolphins. They all evolved from other earlier animals that lived on land and had four legs. As they gradually evolved to live in the sea, their legs gradually disappeared. This little seal shows us that process in action! He lived in the water but hadn't lost his legs yet.

Want to see a really cool interactive site about this animal? Click here.

A super-mysterious human species!

2009-04-28T06:31:00.005-04:00

In a cave in Indonesia, scientists have dug up some fossils of a totally new, extinct human species. Check out the skull on the left, resting on a mirror. These people were very short, about 3 feet tall, so people call them "hobbits."

"Great!" the scientists say, "Let's find out how they relate to other human species!"

And this is when the trouble starts. The bones of these small people look like earlier human species that only lived in Africa. What are they doing thousands of miles and oceans away in Indonesia? And what are they doing in rock that isn't nearly as old as their African cousins?

Scientist #1 says, "They're just regular humans like us with some kind of dwarfism or disease that makes them short."

Scientist #2 says, "No, no, no. They're a new species, and people just came out of Africa to Indonesia way sooner than we thought."

Scientist #3 says, "Naw, you're both crazy. The humans who lived in Indonesia at the time just evolved to be smaller."

Then the three scientists get into a fistfight. Dust flies everywhere in that cave in Indonesia.

Who is right? I sure as heck don't know, but I love to follow these scientific free-for-alls. In a few years someone will probably figure out a story that fits the fossils best, and then everybody will move on to the next mystery.

Read more about the hobbits in this New York Times article today. That's where the image above is from.

BONC#5: Is that Frankenstein? And what’s with the hat and the teeth?

2009-04-21T11:57:00.005-04:00

Let’s say you’re a paleontologist. You’re checking out some 500-million-year old rocks when you find some fossil parts of a truly weird sea creature. Then you check out fossil collections in museums all around the world. And hey, wait a minute! Bits and pieces of your weird creature have been found before, but they were mistaken for other things, like jellyfish and plants. Now you paste all these fossil parts together like Frankenstien, and ta-daah, you have Hurdia!

Hurdia looked like Anomalocaris, one of our strange friends from the Giant Evolution Timeline. They both had long bodies made of flappy layered “wings” covered with gills. They also had weird “arms” like two hooks coming off the sides of their mouths. Oh, and of course they both had eyes sticking out on stalks.

But Hurdia is even weirder, people.

First there’s the mouth situation. Anomalocaris’ mouth was weird enough. It was a circle with the opening in the middle, like a donut that could open and close its hole. The donut hole was ringed with sharp teeth. But Hurdia’s mouth had five circles of teeth, like five toothy donuts stacked on top of each other to make a whole tunnel of sharp teeth. Yikes.

Even stranger, Hurdia had this huge hat sticking out from the front of its head, like a lobster whose shell slipped over the top of its head while the rest of its body went around naked. Hurdia’s hat isn’t covering or protecting anything, just hanging out there. What the heck was it for? Nobody knows. Care to post a guess?

Read more about Hurdia here.

Radio interview of the century!

2009-04-20T11:27:00.004-04:00

Last week I talked live with Diego Mulligan, the magnificent host of "The Journey Home" on KSFR, Santa Fe's public radio station. Great fun. Listen to the interview here, and discover the answers to your burning questions about Charlie's Playhouse!

Dilbert and Darwin

2009-04-19T18:10:00.004-04:00

For anyone who has ever been single, the latest Dilbert strips are for you:

April 10 strip

April 11 strip

The whole nation partied!

2009-04-16T15:38:00.024-04:00

Remember Darwin's 200th birthday last February? We're delighted to have received some photos from three 200th birthday events where the Giant Evolution Timeline was in full swing...

On Long Island....

Children's Ethics Program at the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island’s Darwin Day celebration. Everybody pose with the Giant Timeline - Peace out girls! (Photos thanks to Sharon Stanley.)

and in New Jersey....

In New Jersey, the Humanist Families Group hosted a Darwin Day celebration. Look out, kids, you never know what you’ll find in there! (Photos thanks to Tamara Mount.)

and in Austin, Texas!

Austin’s Center for Inquiry held their Darwin Day event at a local bookstore, with a special guest. Hi, Mr. Darwin! (Photos thanks to Jenni Acosta.)

Volcano erupting on Galapagos right now!

2009-04-13T08:57:00.004-04:00

Holy smokes, kids. A Galapagos Island volcano named La Cumbre is now erupting with flames, lava and smoke. No people are in near it, but some land and sea animals are in danger.

This is very sad for some of the tortoises, iguanas, wolves and blue-footed boobies that live on the islands, but don't panic! This is also nature taking its normal course.

The Galapagos are volcanic islands -- they have been formed over millions of years by undersea and aboveground volcanos erupting like this all the time. It's just how the environment changes there, and those big, fast changes make animals evolve pretty darn quick.

Most animals will survive this eruption, and those that do will go on to have their babies, and the cycle will continue on. So while changes like this are kinda scary, they also make way for new beautiful species to evolve in future.

Click here for more on the eruption.

Win a free Giant Evolution Timeline!

2009-04-09T10:52:00.003-04:00

Is there a kid/church/school you'd like to donate a Giant Evolution Timeline to? The folks over at The Opinionated Parent are giving one away for free! All you have to do is comment on their review of Charlie's Playhouse, posted today, and they'll enter you in a drawing to win the prize.

There are no comments yet, so if only one person comments, well, you do the math on who wins the drawing. Go for it!

PS. The review says, among other nice things, that the Giant Evolution Timeline is "an unequivocally huge hit with the kids around our place." Any reviewer who busts out with a word like 'unequivocally' is ok by me.

Anybody out there speak Norwegian?

2009-04-08T10:20:00.004-04:00

Fri Tanke is the newsmagazine of the Norwegian Humanist Association, and they've just put up a nice piece on Charlie's Playhouse. At least I think it's nice. I can't really tell because it's in Norwegian.

But I can tell that that trying to pronounce sentences like this...

"Som mor og vitenskapskvinne ville jeg gjerne kjøpe leker som kunne lære dem om evolusjon og dinosaurenes plass i livets utvikling."

.... totally gives me and the kids the giggles. Try it.

Evolution plush!

2009-04-06T11:19:00.004-04:00

We’re always excited to find folks who share our love of evolution. So we were delighted to hear from Avram Kaufman, a NYC-based entreprenuer who is starting a line of plush toys called Evolvems. Each cute animal ingeniously flips inside out to form another animal that evolved from the first. They aren't available in stores yet, but he hopes they will be this summer.

This is the first I've ever heard of another company making evolution toys. Avram and I had coffee yesterday in New York. He's a truly nice guy, and we share a lot of goals, such as helping young kids learn about evolution. But we agreed that so far our products are quite different and would appeal to kids of different ages and temperaments.

I'm happy that the first competition for Charlie's Playhouse is coming from Avram and not some huge corporate Death Star. Hopefully we can help each other out. At the end of the coffee we decided that our companies will either engage in 1) a vicious struggle to the death, or 2) delightful mutual collaboration. Stay tuned.

Either way, it's great news for kids who want to learn about evolution...

Draw a cartoon and win a contest! Yes, you!

2009-04-03T19:41:00.008-04:00

Here's how it works. Using your wit and brains, you draw a hilarious cartoon that gets across something important about evolution or science. You submit it to Florida Citizens for Science, which is hosting the contest, and if your entry is selected, not only do you win some awesome prizes but also Florida Citizens for Science promotes your cartoon on websites and elsewhere. Voila, instant celebrity and a better educated public!

It's easy. You don't have to live in Florida or even be able to locate Florida on a map. You don't have to be able to draw. Just draw your entry in stick figures and if you win we'll help redo it as a more professional-looking piece. You don't have to be a kid. There's a kids' division for 12 and under, as well as an adult division.

Most importantly for everyone, I am serving as a celebrity judge for the contest. Yes, it's true. My tiara is at the ready.

I'm also delighted to have the job of re-drawing any stick-figure cartoons that win, and to donate a Giant Timeline and deck of Creature Cards to be used as two of the many prizes.

So call the neighbors! Wake the kids! Game on.

Entry deadline: May 31st
Winners announced: June 19th
Official contest page here.

Darwin's 200th Birthday Bash was a blast!

2009-02-17T11:01:00.004-05:00

What a great party! Over 100 people ushered in Darwin's third century with style and fun.

Here's a slideshow, below. If you want to see it with the picture titles and captions too, click here and select "Show Info" on the upper right.

To all who could make it - great to see you and thanks for coming!

To all who couldn't - maybe next time!

Celebrating Darwin's birthday with the kids

2009-02-13T14:18:00.004-05:00

This weekend is the perfect time to celebrate Darwin's birthday with the kids, coming as it does on the heels of the big man's big 200th yesterday.

Here are some simple ways to celebrate:

Sing Happy Birthday

We all know the monkey version, right? Here's one way to sing it:

Happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo
You look like a monkey; he's my cousin too!

Sometimes kids think humans are descended from monkeys, when we actually share a common ancestor and so are more like distant cousins. We're also not monkeys, we're apes....but that didn't fit into the song so well. Anyway, it will get the conversation rolling.

Read a good book

Our bibliography of children's books about evolution includes 89 titles sorted by age of reader (3-15) and type of book (comic, biography, etc.) We also flag our Top Twelve picks. Take a look at our list, and then head to the library or bookstore.

Take a climb on the tree of life

First, find a plant or animal together. Really. Go to the park and see what you find. Or just look under a rock in your backyard. Find the nearest houseplant, fish tank, or bathtub mold, anything.

Specimen in hand, now your job is to locate it on the tree of life. At the vast Tree of Life project, you can climb onto a branch and see gorgeous photos of representative animals. Climb around for a while and everything starts making a whole lot of systematic sense. Where does your sample fit?

I also love this page of beautiful circular tree of life diagrams put together by a couple of professors at the University of Texas. Scroll down to the last diagram, which is simplified and terrific for talking with older kids. Print it out, hang it on the wall, and let the conversation roll.

And of course, consider a Giant Timeline!

At Charlie's Playhouse we're all about celebrating evolution with kids all the time. If you've got a Giant Timeline floor mat or Creature Cards, pull 'em out and see what happens. If you don't have one, get one!

Hey kids: meet Darwin (age 7) and Huxley (age 5)

2009-02-01T14:23:00.005-05:00

And, no, they aren't nicknames!

Charles Darwin and Thomas "Darwin's Bulldog" Huxley are the namesakes of these two proud and lucky kids from New Jersey. According to their mom Tamara, Darwin (7, on the left) is "cautiously optimistic," and Huxley (5, on the right) is "usually up for anything."

The family aren't related to Darwin or Huxley, and they aren't professional scientists. But as humanists, Tamara and her husband "feel focusing on science and reality is very important. We wanted unusual names, but ones people could pronounce and spell. Interestingly, very few people we come into contact with in the general population get the reference!"

When asked about their names, Dar and Hux said: "It is fun because [Darwin and Huxley] are famous and it gets us into animals and having this name makes me not want to get animals killed." Looks like we've got a couple of budding naturalists there....

So congratulations on some fine names, boys, and best of luck carrying them through life!

Hey kids, now you can eat like Darwin!

2009-01-29T06:37:00.005-05:00

This just released: "Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book" by Dusha Bateson and Weslie Janeway, a delightful and high-quality update of Mrs. Darwin's handwritten personal cookbook. I just got my copy yesterday and am scouring it for snacks I can serve at our Darwin birthday party. Looks like some very tasty stuff -- with the added attraction that it's exactly what our man probably ate at the Down House family dinner table. Nice.

An aside on Emma Darwin. She married Charles in 1839 at the age of 30, and went on to bear ten babies, the last one in 1856 at the age of 47. That's a kid roughly every year and a half for 17 years, and not exactly in the springtime of life. How she did not die from sheer exasperation is beyond me. How she managed in addition to make Turnips Cressilly (p.110) or Gooseberry Cream (p. 136) now and then is nothing short of miraculous. Here's to Emma and her vast reproductive capacity.

The most imaginative Darwin Day celebration ever!

2009-01-28T06:14:00.003-05:00

In the last few weeks, fresh waves of new events have washed over the official Darwin Day listings. I love reading them -- the serious academic seminars, the sloppy happy birthday parties with cake and songs, the lonely calls for something to happen in a certain city, and best of all the unexpected funky weird happenings.

Here's my favorite in that funky category, in Ormond Beach, FL:

200 sea turtle sculptures to mark each year since Charles Darwin's birth. We will attempt to make 200 sea turtles each one in a 10 ft diameter circle and each circle 16 feet apart in a straight line stretching 1 mile long on the beach near the latest high tide water mark. The idea is watch them disappear into the next high tide thus marking the end of Charles Darwin's birthday.

I think it's gorgeous, and Steve Robinson, whoever you are, mazel tov on your great idea. Please take lots of pictures!

They're here! New kids' books on evolution.

2009-01-26T09:33:00.006-05:00

Nine new books for children on evolution and Darwin are slated for release in 2009 (see our bibliography), and we've now got our greedy little hands on five of them:

What Mr. Darwin Saw by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom, ages 4-8
What Darwin Saw by Rosalyn Schanzer, ages 9-12
Evolution Revolution by Robert Winston, ages 9-12
The True Adventures of Charley Darwin by Carolyn Meyer, ages 12-adult
One Beetle Too Many by Kathryn Lasky and Matthew Trueman, ages 7-12

I haven't had time to do more than just flip through them to ooh and aah. My kids have devoured the ones for younger readers. Our reviews (and better images of the covers!) are coming soon. They're all for sale on Amazon if you'd like to jump in.

I've also been asked by the National Center for Science Education to write a review of One Beetle Too Many for their newsletter, NCSE Reports. I'm delighted to do it, and will keep this blog posted when it appears.

One final thought: check out the nearly identical titles on the Schanzer and Manning books. They're from different publishers, one in the UK, one in the US. There's another book called Animals Charles Darwin Saw coming out in April from Chronicle Books. Hmm. Was this planned or is someone having a heart attack in a publishing office somewhere?

Dear Overseas Customers: Please Try Again!

2009-01-25T06:16:00.004-05:00

Recent discovery: some folks have had trouble using a credit card on my site if the card is issued by a foreign bank. Yikes, Authorize.net has some deep and obscure settings on that. I've now changed them to be much more accepting of foreign cards.

So if you're outside the States and have had your card declined on www.charliesplayhouse.com, try it again! I'll be keeping my eye on it from now on.

If it still doesn't work, please don't hesitate to contact me at kmiller@charliesplayhouse.com to figure out some other arrangements.

PS. I know PayPal would solve all these problems. Am working on that -- look for a website redesign in the coming weeks.

BONC#4: A goose and a half

2009-01-12T06:01:00.004-05:00

Imagine this. It's 50 million years ago, and you are having a nice day on the beach in the south of England. A giant shadow passes over the sand castle you're building. You look up to see... a cloud?... a plane?... no, it's an absolutely gigantic GOOSE!

Behold the Dasornis, an ancient waterbird whose wings were 16 feet across. Holy cow, that's big. Scientists think it is an ancestor of the geese we see today.

But it gets weirder. A new fossil shows that Dasornis had sharp teeth along its huge beak.

Wait. Teeth!? A monster goose with teeth? This takes some explaining.

You probably know already that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and that dinosaurs could have some pretty ferocious teeth. But as birds evolved they lost their teeth, probably to save weight so they could fly better. By about 100 million years ago, ancient birds had no teeth at all, and their descendents still don't today. But this guy, Dasornis, later RE-evolved sharp spikes in its beak to help it catch fish by skimming along the water. These spikes looked like teeth and acted like teeth, though they aren't made out of bone. Like the Dasornis' whole beak, the teeth were made of keratin, the same stuff your fingernails are made of.

I guess teeth are pretty handy for some animals, and they'll evolve 'em out of whatever they can!

The illustration is from the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum.

I got the movie wrong. Ack.

2009-01-08T19:25:00.002-05:00

Thanks to all for your kind words about our new bibliography of children's books about evolution and Darwin. Glad to hear it's useful.

Special thanks to Ian for pointing out a mistake in the bibliography. The upcoming movie "Creation" is not based on the book "Charles and Emma" by Deborah Heiligman but rather on Randal Keynes' biography of Darwin titled "Annie's Box." I fixed the bibliography and re-posted.

Dept. of Tooting Our Own Horn

2009-01-07T12:51:00.002-05:00

Got this email the other day. Yes, it made me cry:

Just wanted to let you know that my 7 year old son LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES the timeline. He has spent so much time reading it, playing with it, walking/running on it. It is by far his favorite Christmas gift and by far the best thing we've purchased in a long time! THANK YOU!!
From Alison, Colorado

89 children's books on evolution, yee-ha!

2009-01-05T11:14:00.003-05:00

Recently, we here at Charlie's Playhouse looked deep into our bookshelves and dragged out all the kids' books on evolution we could find. That was about thirty titles, and when we checked around online and at libraries, we found a whole bunch more. We ordered them all.

Altogether we found 89 books, some old, some forthcoming, some in Spanish, some coloring books, some activity books, and so on and so on. What a bonanza!

To celebrate the arrival of the Darwin bicentennial, we've put them all into an annotated bibliography, including our reviews for the ones we have, our "top twelve," and some "recession busters" -- good old books on sale cheap.

Take a look at it here!

Happy reading!

Darwin's Birthday Bash!

2008-12-30T07:13:00.003-05:00

We're back from vacation (Vermont, snow, fun) and gearing up for the Year of Darwin. Ooooh, the possibilities.

First up, announcing our Darwin Birthday Bash for Kids, Adults, Families and Friends!
Sunday, February 15, 2009, 2 to 5 pm
Charlie's Playhouse studio in Pawtucket, RI.

We'll have live music (fiddlers), fun evolution games, door prizes, demonstrations of how we make our Giant Timelines, a champagne/sparkling cider toast, tasty food and yes, a cake with 200 candles. Best of all, we hear that Darwin himself and Capt. FitzRoy are planning to come, fresh off the Beagle, to talk about their adventures and debate the origins of life. Should be a fun and festive afternoon for kids and adults!

If you live in the area and are interested in coming, please contact me, Kate, at kmiller@charliesplayhouse.com.

Invite is coming soon...

Count 'em: three new kids books about Darwin!

2008-12-17T18:56:00.008-05:00

2009, the big Darwin Year, just keeps getting better. So far we have worldwide celebrations, a major motion picture and now three new books for kids about Darwin to be released quite soon:

One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin Kathryn Lasky, illus. by Matthew Trueman. Candlewick. Ages 7–12. Release date January 13, 2009.

The True Adventures of Charley Darwin Carolyn Meyer. Harcourt. Ages 12-up. Release January 2009.

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith Deborah Heiligman. Holt. Ages 12–up. Release date December 23, 2008.

I've pre-ordered the whole lot on Amazon and can't wait to take a look. I'll let you all know how we like them when they arrive. Until then, Publishers' Weekly reviews all three here (scroll down a bit for the Darwin section).

BONC #3: Devil Frog!

2008-12-13T13:14:00.003-05:00

How big can frogs get? You've seen those cute little green guys that hop around,right? Maybe you've also seen some big toads or bullfrogs, who usually look really serious and croak a lot. And maybe you've even seen the biggest frog alive, the Goliath Frog that lives in southern Africa and can grow to be up to a foot long from nose to rear.

Well, get ready for something even bigger, people. A recently dug-up fossil in Madagascar reveals a frog nearly a foot and a half long from nose to rear! It would have been about as long as your family cat and way fatter, weirder and uglier.

It is named -- believe it or not -- Beelzebufo*, which means Devil Frog. Agghh! Watch out for the Devil Frog! Thankfully it lived 65-70 million years ago, so the family cat, along with the rest of us, is safe.

You can read more about Devil Froggie here, or check out the original scientific report of it here.

*Maybe it's pronouced bee-zul-BOO-fo. Or maybe bay-EL-zeh-boo-fo. Personally I like that first way. It's funnier.

Mind-blowing crabs

2008-12-11T03:48:00.010-05:00

Let's do an experiment. First, we'll take your basic group of crabs crawling around in the sea. Next we'll find an isolated island in the South Pacific with a variety of ecosystems. Finally, we'll sprinkle our crabs around the island and let them survive and reproduce in their new environments. After say, a few million years, voila! We'll have a mind-blowing variety of crabs.

Nobody started this experiment on the island of Espiritu Santo several million years ago, but they may as well have. A 2006 biodiversity expedition found about 10,000 species new to science, including this astonishing parade of well-dressed crabs. I have fallen instantly in love with these little guys.

To read more about the crabs, the island and the expedition, go here.

An all-around great day

2008-12-08T16:46:00.003-05:00

Last Saturday I filled my car with Giant Timelines, Creature Cards and high hopes. I was on my way to Harvard to hear Dale McGowan speak (this year's Harvard Humanist of the Year), attend his parenting seminar and maybe sell some Charlie's Playhouse stuff.

It turns out that humanists LOVE Darwin and evolution and also -- hey guess what -- their kids! This is all good for Charlie's Playhouse and the future or our dear country. In the end I made some great contacts, learned a bunch about sane parenting, moved some product, and ended the day sharing a couple of beers with Dale, his wife Rebecca, Greg Epstein (Harvard's Humanist Chaplain), and various other delightful people.

Thanks to all for a terrific day.

BONC #2: The bat with some answers

2008-12-05T05:38:00.003-05:00

Barnyard of Old New Critters (BONC) #2

Ok, kids, tell me what you know about bats. Yes, they're mammals, good. No, they aren't really vampires. Yes, they fly really well. And how do they fly so well? Yes, they have superfantastic EARS!

Ah, the bat's ear. Let's try a simple experiment. You'll need a friend for this. First, close your eyes and sing any song out loud. After a little while, your friend can put his or her hand up a few inches away from your mouth. Can you hear the difference between when the hand is there and when it's not? You just "saw" your friend's hand using only your ears!

That's how bats do it. They squeak with their mouths and then listen with their huge ears to "see" things and avoid crashing into them as they fly. Their ears have a bunch of complicated and special bones that let them do this.

So here's the question. Which came first in bats: being able to fly, or being able to "see" with their ears? Bats started out as land creatures that evolved over millions of years to be able to fly. But when did those special ears come, before or after they could fly? Scientists have been fistfighting over this question for years.

Well, a this newly discovered fossil of a bat that lived 52 million years ago has the answer. This critter had the wings and muscles of a flying creature, but the legs and shape of a land animal. It's called Onychonycteris (I don't know how to say it either), and it's one of the very first bats ever.

And - aha! - Onychonycteris did NOT have those special ear bones. So the answer is: first bats evolved flight, and then they evolved the ability to "see" with their ears.

So here's my next question. If they could fly before they could "see," weren't they crashing into things all the time? Maybe Onychonycteris had really good eyesight instead (they can't tell about its eyes from the fossil.) Or maybe it was just really clumsy. Maybe other animals had to watch out for crazy Onychonycterises always bashing into them. Duck!

Finally! Darwin's life in movie form

2008-12-04T05:30:00.004-05:00

Hooray, they're actually doing it -- they're making a big fancy movie about Darwin's life!

It's scheduled to be released sometime in 2009 to coincide with Darwin's birthday year, and stars Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connolly as his wife/cousin/true love/deeply religious nuisance. You might remember this couple from "A Beautiful Mind," where they met on set and later married. Ah, Hollywood gossip, the best kind.

It's a UK production. I only hope it will come across the pond and be shown widely here. Or maybe the US distribution companies will shy away, just like the toy companies. Well, the distribution and box office of this movie will be interesting to follow, anyway. Must start reading Variety....

And here's my one gripe. The movie focuses on Darwin's ideas about God and how they affected his family relationships. This is terrific, deep, character-driven territory. But I wish it were instead about the voyage of the Beagle. That story also covers terrific, deep, character-driven territory AND it has raucous adventure, vast natural landscapes, boistrous sailors and soldiers, a fiery ship's captain, visits with native Queens, three people who had been kidnapped from Tierra del Fuego and were "civilized" in England, and oh man, so much more. What a story.

Darwin-a-gogo in 2009

2008-12-01T19:08:00.005-05:00

2009 is a big year for we fans of Charles Darwin. It's the 200th anniversary of his birth (Feb. 12th) and 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species."

Darwin Day celebrations and are being planned all over the world. I am drawn to the fiesty, festive ones, like these two:

Evolutionpalooza! is a grand birthday party for Darwin at the San Francisco Public Library on Feb. 2nd. It promises games, food, speakers, a scholarship award and a possible appearance by Darwin himself. This event wins for the most evolved graphic:

The Darwin's 200th Birthday Celebration at the UCSD Faculty Club on Feb. 12th includes this fabulous dinner menu: "Evolution wine, primordial ooze soup, finch with Barbara McClintock's jumping gene corn stuffing, Mendel's peas and lava pie for dessert." After dinner is a concert by The Galapagos Mountain Boys, who will serenade guests with some country pickin' about evolution.

Wish I had a travel budget.

The Barnyard of Old New Critters (BONC) #1

2008-11-30T05:27:00.008-05:00

Mmm, that Thanksgiving dinner was good. I'm just waking up from it.

Hey, there are still two days left of free shipping from Charlie's Playhouse. I can't compete with Wal-Mart's 105% discounts on everything, but there you have it.

Here's the first installment of a series I'll call BONC, or the Barnyard of Old New Critters, which highlights oddball creatures from the fossil record. Why "old" and "new?" They're old because they lived millions of years ago, and they're new because scientists just dug them up recently and nobody's heard of them yet. Why "barnyard?" Because "museum" and "gallery" were too stuffy. We need to round up our kids and get into the barnyard with these creatures, pet 'em, feed 'em, name 'em, and befriend 'em. Whenever there's a new BONC, wake the kids!

BONC #1: A half-naked turtle

Which came first, the turtle's top shell or its bottom shell? Well, we just found out. A new turtle fossil -- with a name too difficult to pronounce so let's not even bother -- shows that the bottom shell came first. This critter lived in water and evolved its bottom shell to protect against attacks from meanies swimming below it. It wasn't until millions of years later when it moved onto land that it needed a top shell to protect against meanies tromping or flying above it.

Think of a turtle that lives on land today. It's got a big old hard shell on top to protect against predators. That makes sense. But it's got that other one on the bottom. Why? How on earth would it be attacked from below? Hawks who sit in holes and wait for a turtle to crawl over it? A really really tiny tiny fox? No, this is ridiculous. That bottom shell is just a leftover from millions of years ago when it lived in water. Cool.

Next time you see a turtle, ask your friends which came first, the top or the bottom!

See an artist's drawing and read more more about this BONC creature here.

2008-11-26T05:26:00.002-05:00

Here's little Leo, getting a good start on life. Thanks so much to Scott for sending this to me!

2008-11-25T05:57:00.008-05:00

Here's my new resolution: to make room in my life for this blog. My plan of attack is to blog first thing each morning when I wake up, regrettably around 4 or 5 am. So for all my legions of fans (read: three people), prepare yourselves for some morning blog love.

And here's today's report. Last week I took a Giant Timeline Floor Mat and Creature Cards to my younger son's pre-K class for a romp. What fun! At their age (about 4), kids respond very physically, running up and down the timeline and squealing at the strange creatures. We first matched the Creature Cards on the timeline, and then had a rollicking game of charades. One young friend (third photo) did a great impression of a Gastornis with its huge beak. I hear from the teachers and other moms that the kids can't stop talking about their visit with the Giant Timeline. If you've got one, think about taking it into your kids' classroom -- no special prep or expertise is needed, and you'll be soooo popular.