A fun week in class, the best of grade six, and the freedom to approach complex concepts in multiple, multi-intellectual ways. In our study of our human ancestry, we've reached our family Hominidae, and are now comparing/contrasting the anatomies of the great apes, the genus Australopithecus, and modern humans, working our way up from the structure and function of the feet, to the knees, hips, hands, teeth, to the skull.
In our investigation of the feet, we walked (with the aim of observing the sensation of our feet, and the transference of weight from the heel to the big toe), wrote (handedness and footedness), and painted (recording our footprints, noting the features, and the connection to those discovered by Mary Leaky at Laetoli).
I took the kids on a slight departure (re lateralization and handedness), and explored our two cognitively-distinct hemispheres. We discussed epilepsy and the consequence of severing the corpus callosum, the bridge that joins the left and right hemispheres. It's fascinating stuff:
We also looked at several other brain-related abnormalities, which I knew the kids would find fascinating, including brain researcher Jill Bolte-Taylor's recollection of a stroke on her left hemisphere, savants, prosopagnosia, and a whirling image that shifts according to the hemisphere engaged.
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