Description
- Title: What Tiny Marine Fossils Reveal about Extinction
- Air Date: February 9, 2017
- Series: Smithsonian Science How webcasts, which are designed to connect natural history science and research to upper-elementary and middle-school students.
This video features Dr. Gene Hunt, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History. Have you ever wondered what makes a species likely to go extinct? Some species have a long tenure on Earth, while others go extinct more rapidly. Gene analyzes fossils of tiny ocean animals called ostracodes to tease out what characteristics govern their tenacity on Earth. See how microscopy helps him tell males from females. Marvel at the methods he uses to test the hypothesis that sex differences play a role in whether a species can survive environmental changes.
Teaching Resources
Subject Guide: Sexual Selection
National Middle School Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
Earth Science
MS-ESS1 Earth's Place in the Universe
- MS-ESS1-4: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6-billion-year-old history.
Life Science
MS-LS4 Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
- MS-LS4-1: Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operate today as in the past.
- MS-LS4-2: Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.
