Wikids >> Life

[Barry Desborough]

Hi all,

I've been working on a little series of pages for children at Wikispaces.

Wikids >> Life is the starting page of a set intended to cover evolutionary biology, aimed at the youngest possible age that can follow the subject.

There is a long way to go, but I thought I'd post at this stage in order to get some early feedback. Any ideas, sources and suggestions would be most welcome. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out the simplest way to get across the fact that the geological evidence does not fit with the idea of a global flood, nor with a series of floods. Simple explanations require a lot of research and effort, and geology is not my strong point. Good photographs are the best way to get ideas across, or failing that, good diagrams (public domain preferred, or with ownership details so I can ask for permission).

To navigate, use the 'back', 'up', 'more' and 'next' arrows. The idea will be that you can use 'more' to go into as much depth as you want, and 'next' to view a sequence of pages at that depth. To see every page, choose 'more' if it is available, otherwise 'next'.

Cheers

Barry

[FreezBee]

Hi all,

I've been working on a little series of pages for children at Wikispaces.

Wikids >> Life is the starting page of a set intended to cover evolutionary biology, aimed at the youngest possible age that can follow the subject.

Ok, it sure does look nice - and it's easy to navigate, oonce you figure out, what it's all about.

- FreezBee

[grmorton]

Hi all,

I've been working on a little series of pages for children at Wikispaces.

Wikids >> Life is the starting page of a set intended to cover evolutionary biology, aimed at the youngest possible age that can follow the subject.

There is a long way to go, but I thought I'd post at this stage in order to get some early feedback. Any ideas, sources and suggestions would be most welcome. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out the simplest way to get across the fact that the geological evidence does not fit with the idea of a global flood, nor with a series of floods. Simple explanations require a lot of research and effort, and geology is not my strong point. Good photographs are the best way to get ideas across, or failing that, good diagrams (public domain preferred, or with ownership details so I can ask for permission).

To navigate, use the 'back', 'up', 'more' and 'next' arrows. The idea will be that you can use 'more' to go into as much depth as you want, and 'next' to view a sequence of pages at that depth. To see every page, choose 'more' if it is available, otherwise 'next'.

Cheers

Barry

I think some adults could use that level of approach

[Barry Desborough]

I think some adults could use that level of approach

That had crossed my mind too.

Any recommendations on the geology front? What's the simplest, most accessible way to understand why a flood or floods cannot explain the geologic column?

[familyof6]

Way to go, Barry! I have some children's books on evolution...I will locate them and look them over and let you know if I find anything that could help you out.

-Heather

[Barry Desborough]

Got a bit more material added.

The sequence is

Life Today : The variety of life that we see and how it is classified
Life Yesterday : The evidence that life was different in the past
Life Changes : How and why life has changed over its history

Each main section features sub-sections and sub-sub sections, going into more detail and sometimes going to a more advanced level.

In the Life Changes section, I've done some work on variation, leading to the role of DNA in protein formation. It needs more on how variations in genotypes lead to the grosser phenotypical changes due to the production of different proteins. I've done done work in inheritance, starting with Mendel, but I want to precede it with mutations as a source of variation.

I hope to knock out some JavaScript to make the system more flexible, with the ability to plug in subtopics and link to them from multiple different places. See 'Design Features - Navigation and structure', but I want to finish the basic content first before I try my hand at that.

Thanks for your comments so far, and thanks for your suggestion, Roland, for an audio facility. Again, when I've got the basics done, I'll be looking into that too.

'Life' is not the be-all and end-all of the project. I'd like to see other topics covered too. I'm particularly interested in doing some work for junior mathematics and in making the content more animated and interactive.

If you want to leave comments at Wikispaces, just register (you don't need to create a space) and leave your comments in the appropriate page discussion.

Cheers

Barry

[Minnesota]

Just excellent!!! One very minor correction: You say that binomial names are usually italicized. They are always italicized.

[Barry Desborough]

Just excellent!!! One very minor correction: You say that binomial names are usually italicized. They are always italicized.

OK. Ta!

[rogue06]

As you can probably guess by the threads I start I am mostly interested in things like fossils, dinosaurs and geology-related subjects in general. I'm an amateur rock hound and fossil collector. So for probably the best site for kids on dinosaurs I would recommend Zoom Dinosaurs - EnchantedLearning.com.


Here is a page about Evolution for Kids that has links to articles apparently easily understandable for kids.
And here is a link to Evolution resources for the public school teacher that might be useful. And not to forget PBS's 7 minute video on Whale Evolution that Jorge dislikes because it's meant for kids.

I do not envy you this task BD. Besides being a thankless job, the danger of simplifying complex subjects like ToE and related issues is that it is easy to oversimplify and thus lead to misunderstandings and mischaracterizations that YECs thrive on. I don't know if you've read this book (I haven't but have heard it's pretty good)
Darwin and Evolution for Kids, maybe it could help in giving ideas on presentation and such


The above is a reply to the request you made in response to my OP in the thread "Lies Evolutionists Tell" - hope it helps (if nothing else it bumps the thread)

[Barry Desborough]

As you can probably guess by the threads I start I am mostly interested in things like fossils, dinosaurs and geology-related subjects in general. I'm an amateur rock hound and fossil collector. So for probably the best site for kids on dinosaurs I would recommend Zoom Dinosaurs - EnchantedLearning.com.


Here is a page about Evolution for Kids that has links to articles apparently easily understandable for kids.
And here is a link to Evolution resources for the public school teacher that might be useful. And not to forget PBS's 7 minute video on Whale Evolution that Jorge dislikes because it's meant for kids.

I do not envy you this task BD. Besides being a thankless job, the danger of simplifying complex subjects like ToE and related issues is that it is easy to oversimplify and thus lead to misunderstandings and mischaracterizations that YECs thrive on. I don't know if you've read this book (I haven't but have heard it's pretty good)
Darwin and Evolution for Kids, maybe it could help in giving ideas on presentation and such


The above is a reply to the request you made in response to my OP in the thread "Lies Evolutionists Tell" - hope it helps (if nothing else it bumps the thread)

That's a great help, thanks Rogue, and thanks for the

Colin Purrington, creator of Evolution resources for the public school teacher you linked to, has joined the wiki, and there is now a contributor's wiki at http://wikidia.wikispaces.com/, open to all. The quality of the wikis are going to depend on recruitment good contributors.

Yes, I can see the dangers oversimplification, and I welcome constructive criticism about this. I guess there's a limit to how much can be presented at a given level of simplification. Hopefully, the project can be extended for older children/adults.

Cheers

Barry

[rogue06]

Here are a few Geology and related matters web sites geared toward children:

Neill's Geology for Kids!!

Volcano World - The Web's Premier Source of Volcano Info

Earthquakes for Kids

Everything Dinosaurs

MSA's Mineralogy 4 Kids

[Barry Desborough]

Here are a few Geology and related matters web sites geared toward children:

Neill's Geology for Kids!!

Volcano World - The Web's Premier Source of Volcano Info

Earthquakes for Kids

Everything Dinosaurs

MSA's Mineralogy 4 Kids

A belated thankyou very much for the links, Rogue. I meant to respond after I'd made use of some of the ideas in them, but I haven't been able to do much wiki work lately. I'll post again when there's something new.

In the meanime, somebody has been repeatedly spamming the discussion pages. I've invited him here to discuss things. Please post any reactions here rather than in the wikids discussion pages.

I find the material created here to be poorly done.

I would suggest adding the following material:

THE NOTION THAT LIFE CHANGED OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS ON EARTH IS AN ERRANT CONCEPT:

Please see: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp

DINOSAURS AND MAN COEXISTED

There is a large amount of evidence pointing to dinosaurs and man coexisting. This information should be included in the article:

- Trained scientists reported seeing a dinosaur. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp

- 1,000 people had seen a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang accrording to the Chinese publication, China Today (see: Lai Kuan and Jian Qun, ‘Dinosaurs: Alive and Well and Living in Northwest China?’, China Today, Vol. XLII No. 2, February 1993, p. 59.) http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/dinosaurs.asp

- An expedition which included, Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph that pointed to dinosaurs and man existing http://www.creationism.org/swift/DohenyExpedition/Doheny01Main.htm and http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/the_hava_supai_dinosaur_carving

- The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology." http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ25.html

- The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, appears to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. http://www.s8int.com/dinolit2.html

- On May 13, 1572 a dinosaur may have been killed by a peasant farmer in Italy (pg 41 "The Great Dinosaur Mystery" by Paul Taylor ISBN 0-89636-264-7) http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/dinoscoexist.html

- It has been stated that dinosaurs are in the Bible. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.aspand http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr2003/r&r0302a.htmand http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/dinos.shtml]

- There is other evidence that dinosaurs and man coexisted at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dinosaurs.asp

[Vigilante]

Barry, are you qualified as a teacher in these subjects? Or is this some kind of indoctrination technique? Getting the kids "as young as possible" to force evo down their throat? Not by positive evidence, but by specifically attacking things like a flood or a young earth?

I don't get it.

[Barry Desborough]

Barry, are you qualified as a teacher in these subjects? Or is this some kind of indoctrination technique? Getting the kids "as young as possible" to force evo down their throat? Not by positive evidence, but by specifically attacking things like a flood or a young earth?

I don't get it.

I'm a qualified and experienced primary school teacher. Explaining to young children the basic facts about the theory of evolution and about the age of the earth will hopefully inoculate some of them against any YEC loopiness they might get exposed to before they get a chance to do formal studies at school. Maybe even some of the oh-so-carefully coralled homeschoolers will come across the material too. I also hope to produce further educational material on more wide-ranging subjects, and I hope I can persuade others to join in.

[Vigilante]

That's great and all.

I just don't want to hear any more about Christians or YECs only being such because of social conditioning and indoctrination. Now here we have a guy specifically targeting the youngest age possible to "inoculate" them against God before their brains are even capable of making such choices on their own. Talk about poisoning the well!
What ever happened to "free thinking", letting kids make up their own mind? Now we have to "inoculate" them against God? So we can raise a bunch of meaningless monkey descendants with no purpose or future, to become the next generation of godless, moral-less punks who are not accountable to anyone in this life or the next? Where the only reason to "do good" and not "bad" is so they don't go to jail or get on someone's bad side.

I don't know Barry, it's an odd thing to want to do, I must say. Are you planning to "inoculate" them from Islam or Buddhism or naturalism or atheism or any other religion? Or, as typical, just Christianity?

I think I might have to counter with a web site targeting kids to inoculate them against this religion of evolution and naturalism and make them see that they are created in the image of God and are accountable to God, and responsible for their decisions and actions. That they are not a product of monkeys getting smart, but are created as-is for a purpose and reason. That there is hope for mankind, and hope for salvation in Jesus Christ.
I suppose you'd have something to say about such a site. But you are doing the same, yes?

Cheers