That's not all. The kids have built an entire menagerie of bones, with skeletons of a dolphin, a porpoise, a turtle, a horse, a cow, a pelican, a coyote, a sea lion, and more. All were assembled this school year by the 28 students in teacher Don Jolley's class. As school projects go, there's probably none other like it anywhere. He's utilizing what would be a waste product.
Bones tell the story of evolution.
And although teaching evolution to college students hasn't been a problem, Jolley said, educators have been puzzled about how to teach it to primary school children. By comparing skeletal structures, the sixth graders at Bolinas School are learning how animals have adapted to climatic and geologic changes over time. This approach provided evidence for evolutionary theories long before DNA analysis and genetics. These animals are tromping around on the ground. Ultimately, that goes back to plate tectonics.