So many students get interested in natural history through the Science Channel, Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel. I like to use clips from these films to illustrate aspects of earth science that can be on the “dry” side without good visuals. There are always the thorny questions of how well these films represent established scientific opinion, and (not least), are they even right on the basic facts. I have listened to too many earth science films tell me that the Earth’s mantle is molten (it is not) to believe in the facts without further proof. I advise you all to take what you hear/see in these films with a proverbial pinch of salt! Nevertheless the BBC have a better than average reputation for getting their facts in order, and with some small exceptions, such as the early appearance of gymnosperms, the series we watched, “Walking with Beasts” is one of the best examples of its kind. Beyond “fact-checking” it is also important to analyze critically what is based on solid fact, and what is reasonable deduction. Beyond this we enter the cloudy realms of supposition and speculation. Viewer beware! This film is full of examples of clear and cloudy reasoning, and your task was to determine which of the many claims fall in which category.
I really enjoyed watching the Walking with Monsters video because it brought to “life” all that we have learned in geologic time (pre-dinosaur). The exercise while watching the movie also allowed us to test what we have learned to what we are presented in a video, which helped emphasize the important elements we should know from all our past class discussions!