The Challenge

WGBH/NOVA approached us to build two web interactives to go with new NOVA television episodes on PBS. They were specifically looking for data-driven investigations. Both tools were created to accompany NOVA episodes commemorating the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species. One episode, "Becoming Human," explores human origins, and the other one, "What Darwin Never Knew," explores the emerging science of evolutionary developmental biology, also known as evo-devo.

(See our Regulating Genes project page for more information about the other interactive)

WGBH's goals included:

• Develop a flash interactive that expanded on one of the topics presented during approximately 6 hours of video episodes
• Develop an activity that is data-driven.
• Develop a classroom activity that takes 1 classroom period.
• Develop all accompanying materials, including teacher guides, student curriculum materials, and web pages.
• Complete both interactives within 3 months to correspond with the airing of the episodes.

Our Solution

We designed an activity in which students explored the challenges scientists face when classifying hominid fossils. Using a database of known hominid finds, students classify their own collection of 10 mystery fossils. They identify fossils by comparing their features to known fossils, and defend their classifications with peers. By using known facts about fossils to define species, they take part in the ongoing scientific debate around human origins.

Some highlights from our solution:

• Identified a data-driven activity One of our most difficult tasks was obtaining authentic fossil data in a two-month timeframe. Data availability and rights clearance was a guiding factor in our choice of an activity. Our ultimate choice of activity was built around an original database that sampled key fossil findings from each known human ancestor — quite an undertaking given the timeframe.
• Designed with physical anthropologist subject matter expert. We teamed with a physical anthropology expert, Dr. Elizabeth Weiss of San Jose State University, in order to develop a student activity that remained true to the types of inquiry and investigation engaged in by professional scientists.
• Re-constructed a database of significant fossil hominid finds Inquirium worked with Dr. Weiss and her students to develop a database of the most significant fossil hominids on record. While not complete, the database was carefully designed to include at least one example of all of the major species of human ancestors currently known, from early australopithecus through homo sapiens. To our knowledge, this is the only sort of comprehensive educational database of its kind available to the public.
• Custom illustrations. Fossil hominids, unlike some other fossils, are often copyrighted. And of course, photos of fossils are also copyrighted. There was no way we could obtain that many copyrights across so many different countries and organizations in time to publish the interactive. Also, fossil photos tended to be taken from different angles at different scales, making it difficult to compare fossils with each other. So we ended up creating our own set of illustrations using permissions from the copyright holders of various fossil casts and smaller collections.
• Developed in Adobe Flex Builder. Adobe's Flex builder gave us a number of simple user interface tools that sped up our ability to develop what was essentially a simple rich internet application. We worked closely with the folks at Creative Bottle who did a tremendous job delivering two interactives on short order.