Galapagos island finches make up my favorite way to show my students the diversification of the species: their beaks differ according the food they eat (see our previous post: Charles Darwin and Galapagos finches).

But when you use these finches as an educational means, then don’t stress on the names of the beaks… Always make sure your audience starts loving what you are doing, once they love nature, they will ask you more. And once you got them started asking, you will be able to teach them facts. The main thing is you start with teaching love

Galapagos Island Finches : what about their beaks?

When it comes to the finch, there is nothing spectacular about its beak: it needs to survive like you and me. And that’s what biology education should be about: how do creatures live next to each other in order to survive?

As you can see: my point of view is more ecological than just name this plant and never ask yourself why there is a plant in the first place.

Also: people will remember things that interests them. So try to get people interested in nature first and then the name giving aspects will come later.

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Galapagos Birdwatching Tours

Galapagos Finches are the most beautiful on the planet, but let me show more Galapagos finches in later posts. Overall: Galapagos birdwatching is a very rewarding experience: since hunting is not allowed on Galapagos, birds can come very close to you in order for you to admire them. Some will even come and sit on your hand!

Galapagos birdwatching tours are very popular in Ecuador. With its unique bird wild life and even unique "brave" animals that have no need to hide from humans, birdwatching in the Galapagos Islands is a must on any Galapagos Cruise.

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As a child I was fascinated by birds, so it was only a matter of time that I found a book in the library about Galapagos finches.

My uncle had a lot of birds in huge cages outdoors, and I loved to look at his finches… yet when I saw the ones from the book in the library, "I wanted more"…

Darwins finches

So imagine that finally in school in biology class my teacher started to talk about Galapagos. Me ready to see even more birds, our teachers showed us a picture of Darwin…

Charles Darwin the theory of evolution

So there I am: anticipating lots and lots of pictures or at least those scientific looking drawings like so:

Darwins Finchs : at least some interesting drawings…

Can you imagine how bored I felt: anticipating beautiful pictures of Galapagos wildlife and in stead getting old boring history pictures: who is Charles Darwin, the biography of Charles Darwin… especially we had to remember the name of the boat in which he made his travel to Galapagos… jeeeez…: what do I care?

That’s when I said: "if I was the teacher: I would go on a Galapagos vacation and make sure to bring some real pictures back to show…".

So for all the things I said when I was a kid, at least I kept this promise … Galapagos is a place "untouched" by humans: it shows how much more variety there could be in a place where there are no humans.

Charles Darwin the theory of evolution

Galapagos should tell us more about our future than about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and specialization.

• The less people like on Galapagos: the more diversity of wildlife.
• The more people: the less divers animals around ("only cats and dogs")

So the more people will lead to an earth with only a few species left… a much different prospect than Darwin’s evolution of the species in more diversity: we humans are just doing the opposite with our earth.

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