Evolutionary biology west term II 2014
Nicknames
Evolutionary Biology at Duke University's west campus- Term II of 2014, was a slightly crazy class. Nicknames of Evolutionary Biology could be: "Evolutionary Bio", "Evol Bio", "Evil Bio", and "that weird class".
Members and Titles
The instructor was the eternally amazing Eric Green (evolutionary biologist), and the TA was the awesome Lindsay Boyer (forensic anthropologist). The members of the class numbered exactly 16, as listed below:
(Please contribute by adding last names and titles) Kathryn Simons (aka Will) - Sister Sorceress 1 Arden Godfrey - Queen Haiz- Prince 1 Alex Denowski- exhiled Christy Chadwick - Sister Sorceress 2 Evelyn Cai - Witch Hunter Will Wang (aka William Willow Wang aka Kathryn)- Prince 2 Symon Ma (took the class like 2 weeks to figure out YoSMdog)- lordly knight Diane- popper, became a princess Lydia- eternal survivor Jessica - Gretel Dillon Weng- g'son Lily Ivanov (knows everything about everything)- duchess Noa- duke Nick- grand general Kyle (frisbee masta)- games master Eric Green - lowly peasant Lindsay Boyer- grand supreme empress
Activities in Class
The first activity of the class was to categorize various crab-fish-worm things on the first day. Then, there was also Walk Like a Chimp, pick up toothpicks like a non-primate, and the eternal Teddy Graham Natural Selection activity. It started by Eric posing the question, "You don't know why Teddy Grahams' arms go up and down?" Things watched in class included (but are not limited to) Peg + Cat (Specifically, the three Tree Problem episodes), Gattaca (like, best sc-fi movie only ever), documentaries on Darwin, speciation, and humans. After all of this, Christy was deemed the only sane one (Edit: I'm not that sane...).
Instructor and TA
Eric studied Stanleya. Pretty flower. Lindsay said, and this is not verbatim, but close: "Yes I've seen a dead body. I've touched one." (Forensic anthro) Also, when we passed by a dead squirrel, she took out gloves from her backpack and investigated it. Eric also said "hella" on two to three occasions, but justified it as being an abbreviation for a Greek word. Lindsay tended to go on Teddy Graham squirrel feeding whims. The class joked that the dead squirrel they passed by on the way to the library from the computer lab was due to Lindsay, but it probably wasn't. 99.99% wasn't. But there's always that 0.01%.
Last day
The day before the last, Evol Bio headed out to the Camel statue. Nick did the Titanic scene, while Jessica, Evelyn, Christy, and Kathryn took camel selfies. On the last day, the project the class had been working on for 3 weeks was completed. It included porcupines, extince wooly mammoths, big and small cats, and the infamous bamboo. After these presentations open to all TiP staff, the class realized what amazing bonds they had formed and shed more than a few tears after singing/crying their last Peg + Cat count-off.