This & that

— Summer vacation for science teachers? Well … a working vacation for some. Florida science teacher Carol Polkowski is heading out to hunt fossils. It’s part of Cornell University’s Fossil Finder summer professional development program. Other Florida teachers are participating in a six-week long program at National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to do some “real-world scientific research.”

— High school biology teachers are being asked to take this survey about perceptions of synthetic biology. And if you are still in the survey mood, help Kansas Citizens for Science with a little Year of Science project.

— Filling in those horse evolution fossil “gaps.”

PANAMA. Archaeologists of the Smithsonian Institute found fossils of a horse during the widening of the canal excavations works.
 
Aldo Rincon, paleontology intern at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, unearthed a set of fossil teeth which was identified by Bruce J. MacFadden, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida in Gainesville, as Anchitherium clarencei, a three-toed browsing horse.

By far the most complete fossil of a horse collected at the site in excavations spanning the last century, characteristics such as the shape of the teeth confirm the identity of two earlier finds and indicate that this horse was primarily a forest-dwelling browser living in the area between 15 and 18 million years ago.

— The National Science Teachers Association is hosting a summer institute in Orlando August 3-5. Professional Learning Communities in Science: Designs, Tools, and Resources for Improving Student Learning.