Ostraboxes: Empowering teachers to share evolution

This week we started work on "Ostraboxes"! In collaboration with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, we will be building modular boxes that can be "check out" of the museum by teachers. Our goal is simple: make teaching evolution easier for educators.

Ostraboxes are reconfigurable for three different grade levels, with different learning outcomes for each. Boxes can include teacher-friendly microscopes, dried ostracod samples, 3D printed enzymes and substrates, and Ostra-Cards, a deck of organism cards that challenge students to think critically about the physiological differences and relationships among groups of animals. 

We in the Oakley Lab are working as a team to get this system up and running, and we are incorporating feedback from the first rounds of teachers to improve the curriculum.