Introduction
This lab will introduce you to a variety of features relating to the human body. Once you have developed an understanding of the human skeletal system, we will then be able to engage in comparative studies to look across species and time.
** Pre-Lab Note: Before completing this lab, please be sure to watch the lab tutorial video below. This video will explain how to engage with the embedded 3D images throughout this lab, and will review key terms that will help you throughout the lab assignment.
Part I: Race and Human Faces
Definitions:
Race: A typological or categorical approach to human variation in which “varieties of a species” are defined, delimited, and distinguished from others by a suite of phenotypic traits, which actually assort independently and do not co-vary with one another in a predictable manner. Race is sometimes conflated with linguistic, historical, ethnic, cultural, and/or religious identity. The race concept has no biological reality but it does have profound social implications.
Cline: An evolutionary approach to variation in human populations where you examine variation in one trait and how it relates to geographical, historical, and contextual features of a population.
Experiment:
Hypothesis: Human variation can be understood using the concept of race
Prediction: Students and their friends and family will assign pictures to categories in a consistent manner. When the assignments are compared there will be little to no discrepancy between the scores.
Step 1: Read over the possible categories that you will be using to assign race identifications to the images.
Step 2: Look at each of the photos, and determine which race you believe corresponds to that individual. You may only choose one category per photograph. For the test to be scientific, YOU MUST NOT CONSULT ANYONE about your answer. As you view each photograph, please enter your decision in the table below (mark the box with an X).
Step 3: After you have assigned a race to each image, ask someone else in your household/apartment (or a few people would be even better) to fill out their own tables on a separate sheet of paper. Make sure they haven’t looked at your answers first.
Reflection Questions
1. What features did you use to decide on the “race” of the subjects?
Now that you have your answers marked with an X, compare your results with your friends, family, roommates, or whoever you asked to do it.
2. How consistent were your answers with those of your at home “lab group”?
3. How can you explain this consistency or lack thereof?
Part 2: Getting to know the human skeleton
In this virtual lab, you will be getting to know the major bones of the human skeleton. Understanding the human skeletal structure will allow us to conduct comparative studies looking at the relationship of modern Homo sapiens to contemporary primates as well as our extinct ancestors.
By the end of this lab, you should be familiar with the following bones:
Station 1: Them Bones, Them Bones
Please look around at the skeleton below to become familiar with various perspectives of the major bones. You can rotate and manipulate the skeleton to look at different sides, practice getting to know the bones, and then identify the indicated bones throughout this lab, after reading the descriptions of the different zones of the skeleton.
**Note: You can move the 3D skeleton around in the small embedded image, or click the button in the bottom right corner to enter full-screen mode.
The average adult human body has approximately 206 bones. (To learn why this should not be considered an exact count, read this editorial by Dr. Roy Meals). These bones can be sorted into 5 different types based, more or less, on size. Please read this BRIEF article describing the five bone types, and then answer the corresponding questions on your lab answersheet. Bone Types.
Bone Types
Type 1:______________________________ Example: __________________________
Type 2:______________________________ Example: __________________________
Type 3:______________________________ Example: __________________________
Type 4:______________________________ Example: __________________________
Type 5:______________________________ Example: __________________________
