For the Love of Books: What Mr Darwin Saw
You may or may not have realised by now that I’m a big fan of using books when teaching. I think books can and should be at the heart of everything we do as educators, after all, we are in the business of supporting children to develop their knowledge across many subject areas in primary schools. Books are full of knowledge and demonstrate the skills of great writers, and it is hugely important that we share them and the knowledge they contain as far as possible. This week’s blog is all around a great book that links to science, and it links to one of the most fascinating areas of science – evolution. There are some brilliant books that can be used within your science curriculum, but ‘What Mr Darwin Saw’ by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom is one of my favourites.
“Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution changed forever our understanding of the world and our place in it. This exciting account of Darwin’s life begins with his boyhood fascination for nature and shows how his ideas were inspired by his epic voyage around the world in the ship HMS Beagle.”
Extra-ordinary!
So this book is biopic. It tells the story of Darwin’s life and journey. It demonstrates so many things to the children reading it that I think are so important in term’s of finding their own path and how being something doesn’t necessarily mean you do one thing. I think what I love most about this book, is how it demonstrates that Darwin was largely ordinary in many ways. It talks about how his father considered him ordinary and how he went off to university to do relatively ordinary things for his time, like become a physician or a clergymen. This pattern continues as he apparently begins to study rather innocuous things in his own time, like his collecting and studying of beetles. The reference to him finding a new type of beetle and wanting not to lose it by putting it in his mouth, only for it to spray burning fluid and burn his tongue is brilliant. It alludes to what we know Darwin for best, and that is his observation of the variation that happens across the same species of animal.
I guess what I find truly inspiring about Darwin, is that he never set out to be more than himself. His story doesn’t allow him to feel like someone who was looking for fame and fortune – he was an ordinary man, who observed extraordinary things, and achieved extraordinary things as a result of his keen and insightful observations. For me, this demonstrates that anyone can achieve greatness but that it is not about searching it out, just being you is enough. This is a really powerful message for children. I think the other significant point to consider here, is that Darwin is a fantastic scientific role model. He asked questions, he looked for answers within his observations, he found more questions and the cycle continued. These two principals are absolutely key to being a good scientist:
1. Asking perceptive questions
2. Making accurate observations
What did Mr Darwin see?
Darwin’s story moves on to him setting sail on the HMS Beagle on his trip around the world, continuing his hobby of collecting beetles in the Brazilian rainforest, observing different animals and insects like soldier ants, discovering a new species of dolphin, analysing fossils and so much more. He really had the trip of a lifetime!
Whilst it isn’t all he experienced, his observations from the Galapagos Islands are some of my favourites to share with children. His findings on how iguanas on one of the islands had evolved to become more aquatic in their habits, and how the tortoises on each island had evolved differently in order to adapt to their environment. It’s all fascinating for me, but I think that the tortoises, as an example, are brilliant to share when learning about evolution and adaptation in science. I’ve taught lessons where we have studied the different shapes and features of the tortoise shells, looking at the islands from where they came and this is a really powerful visual to help the children understand the concept of adapting to an environment.
Ultimately, Darwin’s observations were summed up in his work, ‘On the Origin of Species’, and this in itself was not something he took lightly. His ideas were somewhat controversial to an extent. As with many great scientific discoveries, they often clashed with the religious beliefs of the time. Darwin’s suggestion that humans originated from animals was one that people found difficult to consider. He took 20 years to publish his work on adaptation and natural selection, but in my view remains one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the time. The final page of this book sums up beautifully all of the things that he saw which back up his theory of evolution by natural selection. It really is brilliant for setting out these ideas clearly and concisely, and in a way that children can easily digest.
A brilliant teaching tool
Obviously, the benefits of having a book like this are immense when teaching the topic of evolution in science, particularly when trying to encourage children to develop their skills of observation. There are, however, so many other ways this book can be used within the curriculum in order to develop children’s knowledge and skills. In term’s of cross curricular writing, it presents all sorts of opportunities. It’s a great model for writing biographically -it’s also in the first person, so can inspire autobiographical writing too. In terms of recording scientific notes or reports, it demonstrates some great snippets of examples. It also provides great stimulus for research writing, or diary/journalistic writing. The children could write their own imagined accounts of visiting the Galapagos islands or they could write newspaper reports about the discoveries Darwin made. There are so many possibilities!
There are other links to geography here too. Could you link it to a study of a specific place such as the rainforest in Brazil? Can the children plot the journey travelled by the crew of the HMS Beagle, naming all of the countries that they visited and oceans that they crossed? Could they use Darwin’s methods to conduct their own fieldwork within their local area and compare it to the findings that he made. This then leads to art, as part of that fieldwork may involve field sketching and observational drawing. When I look at a book and the inspiration it can provide to the children, I rarely just see one thing – my mind races with excitement about the possibilities it presents for cross curricular learning. This book, unsurprisingly, has had this effect on me, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be blogging about it now.
Misinterpretation
The other opportunity that this book presents is discussions about racism and slavery as part of colonialism. Now the book itself doesn’t mention this, however, there were some people during Darwin’s time and afterwards who referred to his work as part of creating a negative picture about black people during the British Empire. They implied it was evidence to support negative views about black people of the time. This view, was of course, ridiculous, and not Darwin’s intention or belief as far as I am aware, but as we often see, it is easy to take someone’s purely scientific theory and apply it to a warped view. The reason I mention this, however, is that I have done a bit of work on trying to include more information about black British history within the primary curriculum (I’ll attach a link to my publication at the end if you’re interested), and I think it is a way in to discussions around some of the issues regarding prejudice during Victorian times, which can then lead to further discussions around black British history. As I said, I’m always looking for multiple opportunities for developing a strong, diverse curriculum when I first discover a book.
Well there you have it; ‘What Mr Darwin Saw’. It’s a book that tells a great story, has a strong emphasis on developing observational skills within science, but also provides so much pore in terms of the possibilities for cross curricular learning. Have you used any books that are great in science and for so much more?
If you want more information on the publication I referred to in the blog, you can follow this link: