Alison Campbell • Jan 03, 2012 •
The intrepid reporters from Number 8 Network e-mailed the other day. "What are you reading?" they asked; "after all, it's the holidays & you must have heaps of time to put your nose in a book." Which is sort of... Read More
Alison Campbell • Nov 26, 2010 •
I teach a bit of botany, to our first-year students. I really enjoy the subject & hopefully some of that rubs off :) Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for new images to use in my lectures, & tonight I... Read More
Alison Campbell • Oct 29, 2010 •
Prominent creationist Ray Comfort once (in)famously commented that the 'design elements' that make up a banana, including its so-convenient shape, are evidence for the existence of a Designer. A comment that has been pretty resoundingly debunked - unsurprisingly, since the... Read More
Alison Campbell • Aug 03, 2010 •
Last year's Level 3 paper on 'plant responses & animal behaviour' (AS 90716) had a question on northern rata - rather a lovely tree; I remember that we had one on our section back in Wairoa, when I was a kid.... Read More
Alison Campbell • Aug 01, 2010 •
There are other photosynthesisers besides Volvox, living in our fishpond. Bigger plants include waterlilies, various sedges, & Elodea. And at this time of year the surface is covered by a carpet of duckweed, but when summer comes the Azolla will tend to take... Read More
Alison Campbell • Jul 29, 2010 •
In one of our first-year biology labs the students spend a bit of time looking down the microscope at various algae & protozoa. Some of their samples come from a container of interestingly weedy water from my fishpond. Not only is... Read More
Alison Campbell • Jul 27, 2010 •
I really enjoy my first-year bio classes, & one of the reasons for this is that the students respond to my questions and ask questions of their own. I've just read Marcus's excellent post on what he's learned from his... Read More
Alison Campbell • Apr 21, 2010 •
I was going to write about yesterday's dreadful Herald headline on the risks of multivitamin pills (which implied that women taking multi-vits are at a hugely increased risk of breast cancer) - but Jim McVeagh beat me to it.So...... Read More
Alison Campbell • Apr 09, 2010 •
I was having tea with very good friends of ours, a couple of evenings ago now, & they showed me this stunningly beautiful short film clip called Nature by numbers. The film-maker, Christobal Vila, describes it as a 'movie inspired by... Read More
Alison Campbell • Apr 03, 2010 •
One of our first-year bio labs sees our students using potometers to determine how transpiration is affected by things like light, humidity, & wind movement. Those of my readers who are school students may well have done something similar, but... Read More