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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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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It’s not because Galapagos looks like paradise, that it is paradise. These days Galapagos is quite well respected, but that’s only a recent decision…

Back in the days of Darwin (Charles Darwin and Galapagos finches), the easiest source of food were the famous giant Galapagos turtles. They are so slow that they are easy to capture, and if you turn them on their back, they are said to be able to live for another year…

So it was only a matter of time that Galapagos turtles became endangered. Some have been captured to save the species: zoos that have Galapagos turtles have been breeding them successfully and introduced them back to the Galapagos Islands.

Yet we all know that the gene-pool is limited when your ancestors have been breeding only in zoos. Meaning: only a few parents are at the origin of most modern day Galapagos turtles.

You can say: take a turtle from one island and put them on the other islands…

I agree with that idea, but then some biologists still think that “one shouldn’t interfere”… That I find a discussable stand: first people destroy almost all and then they say: we shouldn’t interfere…

Then the specific Galapagos dilemma: one turtle form 1 island is a bit different than one from another island, and they don’t seem to have a appetite to mix-breed… That’s exactly the reason why you get specific sub species in the first place…: they “don’t breed with just any turtle!”.

Endangered Galapagos Turtles

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