TO THE TEACHER 



It is the purpose of this Manual to be of direct help to teachers and students of biology. It is not 

 intended, however, to be an automatic instrument to be placed in the hands of students abandoned to 

 their own resources and good fortune. It will be necessary for the teacher to plan the work in accord- 

 ance with available material and with local conditions. There are more exercises than most classes will 

 be able to finish ; there will arise occasions when exercises suggested in the Manual for Teachers will 

 appear more urgent than any here, and there will be other occasions when totally new exercises will be 

 most appropriate. The exercises, like the topics in the " Elementary Biology," can most profitably be 

 arranged in the order best suited to local conditions or to the interests of the teacher. 



The exercises are varied in form. Some are strictly experimental ; others are observational ; some 

 call for the collection and organization of facts already in the possession of the pupils or of the com- 

 munity, utilizing " what everybody knows." In every case the exercise is designed to be a project in 

 finding out something, usually something more comprehensive and more significant than mere matters 

 of fact. Accordingly the projects permit of a great variety of adaptations to the conditions and needs of 

 different localities or students. There are home and field and community exercises as well as strictly 

 laboratory exercises. Moreover, some of the " laboratory " exercises call for living material in the form 

 of the students themselves, suggesting that biology can be something very immediate and intimate as 

 well as exotic and objective. There is a wide choice of materials and equipment and also of execution. 



Some of the exercises emphasize the need for large masses of data or the need for cooperation 

 among many observers. In all cases the social aspects of science, both in the sense of its origins in 

 common experience and in the sense of its application to common problems, will be readily brought to 

 the mind of the students. 



Although only a very few of the exercises are marked " Demonstration," many of the others will be 

 best executed by the teacher or by a single student or group of students, with all the others making 

 notes. In some cases the exercise may be divided into a number of projects assigned to as many 

 individuals or committees. 



Where for any reason it is not feasible to have all the students perform the required exercises at 

 practically the same time, individual or group projects can be arranged for demonstration to the whole 

 class. Assignments should be made well in advance, so that the responsible students or committees may 

 have ample time for preparation. Projects thus presented before the class should be received most 

 critically. The students should be encouraged to challenge methods and conclusions in a thoroughly 

 rigorous fashion, not in the spirit of captious faultfinding, of quibbling, or of trapping one another, 

 but in the spirit of intellectual caution. We must be jealously on guard against letting false or foolish 

 ideas impose themselves upon us by means of solemn ceremonial that calls itself scientific because it 

 is enacted in a laboratory with apparatus. 



The questions offered in connection with most of the exercises are designed, as stated in To 

 the Student, to stimulate thinking. Here the teacher should maintain toward the replies offered the 

 attitude expressed by the query, What makes you say that ? rather than the attitude of approval or 

 disapproval as to their correctness. It is more important to get the student to formulate hypotheses, 

 check them, and modify them than it is to have him find the " right " answer ; and in many cases 

 nobody knows the true answer, if there is one. 



In handling the mass of materials and apparatus that are so essential for insuring a consistently 

 objective treatment of problems, it is possible to get the students to assume nearly all of the burden. 

 Boys and girls are glad to assist where definite tasks and responsibilities are provided. Students should 

 be designated as curators for the different classes of materials the collections of insects, of flowers, 

 of fossils, and other materials assembled for the museum and laboratory. Other students may be 

 assigned to keep various special records, such as weather charts, temperature records, bird calendar, 

 and so on. Those skilled in lettering and drawing can assist by making charts and diagrams to be 

 added to a growing collection for class use. Some students may be custodians of current clippings, 



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