E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth by Gael McGill, Edward O. Wilson & Morgan Ryan. Wilson Digital, 2012. iTunes. (Chapter 1 available for free. This book can only be viewed using iBooks 2 on an iPad. iOS 5 is required.)
by John Hawks
Last week I was meeting with other biology faculty discussing how to revamp biology education. Faculty, students, education researchers, and institutions all want to see innovations, and they often have competing demands. A number of foundations are now trying to develop teaching units for introductory biology. Taking a "modular" approach, some are focusing on materials that can be used and reused in different courses. Others are trying a "one size fits all" approach by making textbooks to fit every course.
"Life on Earth" is a new textbook project by the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. The foundation's goal is to supply a full biology textbook suitable for high school biology. The book is one of the first to take full advantage of Apple's new iBooks format, with embedded video, three-dimensional models, self-quizzes and other add-ons integrated seamlessly in the text. The foundation intends to make the book available for free on the iBooks platform, and a sample chapter along with additional material is presently available for download to the iPad.
Some would argue that educational "innovation" is too often just window-dressing — shopworn ideas in new, flashy clothing. Personally I tend to agree. It may be great to be able to bring knowledge to students for free, in the open. Saving school districts money may not be an unalloyed good, but it ain't evil. Still, openness isn't enough. The materials also have to be effective. When I opened "Life on Earth", I was skeptical…
…right up to the point where I started playing with the 3-D image of a nucleosome, a complex of proteins and DNA that enables tight packing of DNA within chromosomes. Freely rotating the entire structure enabled me to see the relatively small size of the protein element of the nucleosome, and the way that the DNA double helix doubles around a protein core in two tight coils. Playing with this model immediately provides a spatial understanding of the structure that no textbook before ever gave me.
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