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Answers:
Fiction. Paranthropus. Phenotype is the physical manifestation of an organism’s genes. Louis Leakey employed Jane Goodall at the National
Museum in Nairobi, Kenya.
12
ON CAMPUS
S
oon after Mindy
Pitre, assistant
professor of
anthropology,
started teaching at
St. Lawrence, she
recognized the need to bring
course material to life in a more
visual and collaborative
manner. Together with Holly
Hunold ’13, medical illustrator,
and Nicole Burt, curator of
human health and evolutionary
medicine at the Cleveland
Museum of Natural History,
she created a card game,
“Origins: An Evolutionary
Journey,” which makes
learning complicated evolution
concepts easier than ever.
“Origins is the first of its kind
for biological anthropology
courses,” Pitre says. “It teaches
students about the nature of
humanity from both a
biological and cultural
perspective, and it allows the
instructor to disguise learning
as fun. In fact, Pitre’s former
student, Heather Raimer ’17,
agrees, “The format of the game
makes sure you are able to
articulate ideas, identify groups
of similar concepts, and
describe, point out, or draw
associated images or features.”
Through the game, students
learn about the history of
evolutionary thought, the fossil
and genetic evidence for human
evolution, the origins of
language and culture and
human biological
diversification. This, Heather
says, “is a way to both help
review key concepts, realize
what we might need to study
more and provide another
presentation of the material.”
The game consists of cards
like ‘Guess WHO’ and
‘ARTifact,’ which are “color
coded by overarching concepts
and drawn by one of Pitre’s
former students,” Heather says.
“It has a few different ways to
play; we can do a quick review
as a group going through the
cards specific to a section, but
there is also a competitive way
to play as teams. You get points
for getting things right and
there are ways to steal players
from other teams.”
The excitement surrounding
the game, which was also
recently profiled on
Forbes.com,
has led to many new ideas.
“We have been throwing
around the idea of expansion
packs for the game, even
creating a Human Osteology
version,” Pitre says. “We love
hearing about how it’s being
used in the classroom to
increase student learning
outcomes. At the beginning the
student are always a bit
nervous…but in the end it’s
hard to get them to stop.”
n
Evolution: The Card Game
BY IMMAN MERDANOVIC ’17