Wikijunior talk:Life

See Wikijunior:Life/Structure plan.

There are two reasons I started with this project. 1) I am an ex-teacher and an ex-software engineer. It has been a long-term ambition of mine to develop good educational content in an online medium. 2) I make no bones about it, I am a passionate defender of evolution and I regard the creationist movement as a threat to rationality. Particularly disturbing are the moves to get creationism into schools and the production of creationist material aimed at children. Despite my passions, I have come to the conclusion that a strict NPOV approach to the whole business is the best one. A scrupulous adherence to the evidence and the facts is, in my view, the best way to provide a genuine education in the matter to children. The last thing I want to see here is the old origins knockabout. I chose the title, 'Life' in order to avoid, as long as possible, the bogeyword, beginning with 'e', that denotes the scientific theory of the development of life, both while building up this project and before it is encountered by a reader. I do not consider this a subterfuge, given the prejudice that many readers might bring to the subject. As time goes on, I will try ::** What vestigial characteristics are found in this group? to develop a more detailed structure. Barry Desborough 17:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The interest in a project is good, but what is this book going to cover? It is relatively vague. What is each article/page going to be about? It also lacks the format of the official Wikijunior books, such as links to all of the articles being on the main page to easily find them, or questions on each page. By "official" I mean that they are chosen by vote each quarter and are listed on the Wikijunior page; go look at them and see what I mean by their structure and format. I would love to help, but I'm not sure what direction this book is supposed to go. MiltonT 13:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello Milton. Thanks for your input. This is just a quick note for the moment. I'll reply more fully as soon as I can. I will study what you say about official standards, and I'll try to fill out the aims and the intended structure. Basically, I intend to set out a course on the theory of evolution. Will get back with more as soon as I can. --Barry Desborough 18:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Update. I've sketched out a plan for the structure of the project in a different file, in order to facilitate its evolution. The file is Wikijunior:Life/Structure plan. --Barry Desborough 02:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It may be difficult to fit this concept into the Wikijunior model. As it stands the structure is too taxing for the intended age group. I agree that teaching young kids to understand evolution is important. But the structure plan was hard for me to get through and I'm a college educated 40 year old with an interest in the subject. I would propose a very different structure more in keeping with the Wikijunior model. The structure of the book would be based around biological families or orders (in the scientific classification sense). Then there would be a series of questions related to that family/order.


 * Target age: Standard Wikijunior (8-12)
 * Possible Section Titles
 * Amanita (Amanita Mushrooms)
 * Brachypelma (Tarantula)
 * Decapoda (Crabs)
 * Hominidae (Great Apes)
 * Mysticeti (Baleen Whales)
 * Pelecanidae (Pelicans)
 * Pteropodidae (Fruit Bats)
 * Semaeostomeae (Jellyfish)
 * Possible Questions for each Article
 * Where is this group found?
 * What are some early examples?
 * What are some present day examples?
 * What vestigial characteristics are found in this group?
 * How is this group adapted to its environment?
 * How do members of this group vary?
 * Possible Additional Section Titles
 * Geologic Time Scale
 * Ancient Life and the Fossil Record
 * Linnaean Classification
 * Theory of Change
 * Charles Darwin
 * Natural Selection
 * DNA and Mutations
 * Intelligent Design
 * Creationism
 * Intelligent Design
 * Creationism


 * I think a setup more like that would be more accessible. --xixtas 15:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)