Student Resources

BIOLOGY B

CREDIT 3

HMH ONLINE TEXT

3.1

3.2

Dolphins Plan Ahead | PBS LearningMediaLearn about the cognitive abilities of dolphins in this video excerpt from NOVA scienceNOW: "How Smart Are Animals?" Correspondent Doug Hamilton meets with researcher Stan Kuczaj and dolphin trainer Teri Bolton to explore the intelligence of dolphins. In one experiment, dolphins display the ability to think and plan ahead to get a fish out of a box more efficiently. In another, two dolphins demonstrate their ability to plan and communicate with each other when they are signaled to create a new trick together. Dolphins vocalize with clicks and whistles, but scientists do not yet understand their language. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.

NOVA scienceNOW: Smart Marine Mammals | Smart Sea Lions | PBS LearningMediaIn this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, meet Rio, a captive California sea lion who has helped research biologists to better understand the cognitive abilities of this species. See how Rio has learned that certain sounds are associated with certain letters or numbers, and observe how she demonstrates the higher order reasoning skill of logic. Biologist Colleen Reichmuth explains how Rio has learned that all letters can be grouped together and is able to use a logic rule to solve a new problem. Consider how this reasoning ability is related to language.

3.3

Behavioral Costs and Benefits (HMH)

3.4

Elephant Stranger Danger | PBS LearningMediaExplore how elephants can distinguish calls from other elephants in this video from NOVA: Inside Animal Minds: Who's the Smartest? Elephants are social animals and move in family groups, which frequently come into contact with other families. Elephants communicate using different kinds of calls, or vocalizations; some may help them make decisions about which families are safe to be near and which should be avoided. An experiment using recorded calls showed that elephants could keep track of 100 voices and demonstrated that elephants were consistently able to distinguish calls from unfamiliar elephants.

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