Join Dr. Dr. Chi-hua Chiu, Assistant Professor in the department of Anthropology at Kent State University, for a discussion about the origins of life. NOVA’s Origins: How Life Began provides the basis for the discussion. How did things go from non-living to living? How did it go from something that could not reproduce to something that could? Do we really know? Is there a recipe for life? Students should be familiar with the video and/or its content, and should prepare questions ahead of time for Dr. Chiu.  MAGPI is pleased to be a partner in the STARS Science in the Cinema project.

Videoconference Outline:

• Welcome/Introductions: Moderator will give a brief introduction of the program and introduce the principal speaker.
• Presentation: The principal speaker will give a 5 minute presentation
• Question/Answer Session: Moderator will call on each participating school to ask one question each per round.  Rounds of questions will continue as time permits.  The schools will ask questions in alphabetical order.
• Closing Remarks: The Moderator will close the question and answer session, and students will hear closing remarks from the principal speaker.
• Conference Conclusion

Preparing for the videoconference event:

Familiarize Students with the Documentary

• Purchase or rent the video, "Origins.” Preview and then watch the video with your class.
• OR Use the transcript of the video found in Program Resources to prepare your students with concepts from the video.

Encourage Student Research

• Use the website links listed in Program Resources to encourage student research into the subject, and for the preparation of questions for Dr. Chiu.
• Add any other teacher strategies or materials that you feel will enhance the students' experience. Remember that the purpose of using information from the video is to provide all participants with a common ground for questions and discussion.

Develop Questions: Students will develop questions for Dr. Chiu regarding the topics covered in the documentary and in the students' research. Teachers will review questions for appropriateness and content. Students will write questions on note cards for the videoconference. We will call on schools in round-robin fashion during the videoconference events.

About the Science in the Cinema Program

Science in the Cinema, in its original form, is a free film and lecture series intended for a broad range of individuals who enjoy the cinema and have an interest in science and medicine. Selected films touch on a variety of medical and scientific topics. Following each film, an expert discusses the science depicted in the film and takes questions from the audience. These discussions also include the ethical implications raised by the film. Science in the Cinema programs, in this form, was only available to live audiences.

Through the use of videoconferencing our Science and the Cinema program uses technology to accomplish the same goals. It allows students to interact directly with scientists and researchers in their respective fields of expertise without leaving their school. These projects also challenge the students by engaging them in discussions on the ethical and moral issues that the advancement of science and technology places on the world community. Projects are being developed that will include experts in the fields of medicine, genetics, anthropology, cellular biology, and toxicology.

About Dr. Chi-hua Chiu

Dr. Chi-hua Chiu is an Assistant Professor in the department of Anthropology at Kent State University, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University. She is also a member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers. She earned her bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1991 and her doctorate in Molecular Evolution from Wayne State University in 1998. Before arriving at Rutgers, Dr. Chiu was an NSF/Sloan Postdoctoral Fellow of Molecular Evolution at Yale University. Dr. Chiu runs an evolutionary genetics laboratory that investigates the molecular evolution and function of Hox genes, which play a critical role in embryonic patterning. Dr. Chiu is an editorial board member of the Journal of Experimental Zoology: Molecular and Developmental Evolution and The Online Journal of Genomics. She serves on the Evolutionary Biology panel of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program (NSF-GRFP ).