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Guião Aplicação Anatomy 4D aplicação na aula.pptx

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Neste novo tempo de perpétuas e rápidas mudanças com que os professores se deparam; perante a utilização recorrente e de um modo “viciante” das tecnologias digitais e da globalização presente ao instante de um toque, o professor deverá ser ao mesmo tempo, motor de equilíbrio, de confiança, de maturidade, mas também de criatividade e de capacidade de adaptação. A utilização de aplicações interativas permite transmitir aos alunos essa forma de estar atual e ao mesmo tempo de demonstrar, através destas aplicações interativas no processo de ensino/aprendizagem, que a metodologia experimental na abordagem dos problemas permite facilitar a compreensão do mundo natural.Ao longo da ação foram desenvolvidos os conhecimentos iniciais e superadas dúvidas com o apoio das formadoras e dos trabalhos em grupo; as dúvidas que surgiram estiveram relacionadas com a diferenciação entre trabalho prático e trabalho experimental, e métodos de abordagem pedagógica que foram colmatadas com as dinâmicas desenvolvidas ao longo da ação e do trabalho individual. Apesar de não ter conseguido, em tempo útil elaborar um guião didático mais completo, esta ação desenvolveu a necessidade de orientar a prática docente, num quadro de crescente complexidade e permanente mutação social, por forma a responder às exigências colocadas por essas transformações e a gerir com qualidade as respostas necessárias de forma a desenvolver o valor de “querer aprender mais; desenvolver o pensamento reflexivo, crítico e criativo; procurar novas soluções e aplicações.” (Perfil do Aluno à Saída da Escolaridade Obrigatória, 2017, p. 17).                               Obrigada a todos pela partilha, pela disponibilidade, pelo empenho em sermos mais!  Magda

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Neste novo tempo de perpétuas e rápidas mudanças com que os professores se deparam; perante a utilização recorrente e de um modo “viciante” das tecnologias digitais e da globalização presente ao instante de um toque, o professor deverá ser ao mesmo tempo, motor de equilíbrio, de confiança, de maturidade, mas também de criatividade e de capacidade de adaptação. A utilização de aplicações interativas permite transmitir aos alunos essa forma de estar atual e ao mesmo tempo de demonstrar, através destas aplicações interativas no processo de ensino/aprendizagem, que a metodologia experimental na abordagem dos problemas permite facilitar a compreensão do mundo natural.Ao longo da ação foram desenvolvidos os conhecimentos iniciais e superadas dúvidas com o apoio das formadoras e dos trabalhos em grupo; as dúvidas que surgiram estiveram relacionadas com a diferenciação entre trabalho prático e trabalho experimental, e métodos de abordagem pedagógica que foram colmatadas com as dinâmicas desenvolvidas ao longo da ação e do trabalho individual. Apesar de não ter conseguido, em tempo útil elaborar um guião didático mais completo, esta ação desenvolveu a necessidade de orientar a prática docente, num quadro de crescente complexidade e permanente mutação social, por forma a responder às exigências colocadas por essas transformações e a gerir com qualidade as respostas necessárias de forma a desenvolver o valor de “querer aprender mais; desenvolver o pensamento reflexivo, crítico e criativo; procurar novas soluções e aplicações.” (Perfil do Aluno à Saída da Escolaridade Obrigatória, 2017, p. 17).                               Obrigada a todos pela partilha, pela disponibilidade, pelo empenho em sermos mais!  Magda

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Vídeo: Para a Síndrome da Deficiência em Natureza (Nature Deficit Desorder). aconselha-se terapia intensiva de contacto com objectos  naturais: rochas, minerais, fósseis, conchas, carapaças, folhas, paus, etc... aulas de exploração da natureza ...

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Vídeo: Para a Síndrome da Deficiência em Natureza (Nature Deficit Desorder). aconselha-se terapia intensiva de contacto com objectos  naturais: rochas, minerais, fósseis, conchas, carapaças, folhas, paus, etc... aulas de exploração da natureza ...

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The Danajon Bank in the central Philippines was once a geologic treasure chest brimming with marine life. It is the only double barrier reef in the Philippines and one of only six double barrier reefs in the world. Overfishing depleted stocks by 240 percent since 1960, according to one recent study, driving fishermen to more and more desperate measures in the hunt for dwindling numbers of fish.

As fish declined, the number of nets set in waters to catch them increased. It didn't take long for discarded fishing nets to pile up by the ton on beaches and in gnarled root wells in the mangroves. Further offshore, these so-called ghostnets drifted untethered for years, snagging fish, sponges, crabs, and sea cucumbers-or settled on delicate reefs, smothering the corals.

Today, the same fishermen who once hauled out rabbitfish and blue crabs now harvest the nets themselves. They work in a flourishing net retrieval program with the twin goals of paying a living wage while helping the beat-up ecosystem recover. NetWorks, operated in part by the Zoological Society of London, is one of a growing number of programs in coastal countries to take on the increasing problem of discarded or lost fishing nets and the harm they cause.

Industry recycling of fishing gear is still relatively young, and lagged behind efforts to keep plastic out of the ocean until recent years, even though the introduction of nylon nets transformed the fishing industry in the late 1970s, enabling scale and efficiency to increase fishing globally.

"I think nets get sidelined as they are not as tractable for the general public in the way that bottles, straws, and bags are because they are the responsibility of the fishing industry," says Heather Koldewey, a marine scientist and chief of the Zoological Society of London's global programs. "It's a different problem to solve than land-based waste management to reduce the flow of plastics into the ocean," says Koldewey, who is also a National Geographic fellow.

But the problem is real. More than 705,000 tons (1.28 billion pounds) of fishing nets are lost yearly, according to the United Nation's most recent global count, published in 2009. In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, almost half the weight of surface debris is fishing gear, according to a 2017 study by Laurent Lebreton, an oceanographer with the Ocean Cleanup Foundation.

All told, fishing gear makes up about 10 percent of the plastic trash in the oceans, but accounts for an outsized proportion of fatalities to marine wildlife. More than 100,000 large whales, sea lions, and seals are killed every year, according to World Animal Protection, as well as an "inestimable" number of sea birds, turtles and fish.

Turtles seem especially vulnerable to entanglement. In Australia, home to six of the world's threatened species of sea turtles, the most likely way a sea turtle will die is by becoming entangled in a discarded fishing net, according to research by Denise Hardesty and Chris Wilcox, research scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

In the Gulf of Carpentaria, which spans Queensland and the Northern Territory in Australia, discarded or lost fishing nets wash ashore in some of the highest densities globally-up to three tons per kilometer yearly. Hardesty calls the nets "floating death traps," and she cites examples elsewhere around the globe. When 870 ghostnets were recovered in Washington state, for example, they contained more than 32,000 marine animals, including more than 500 birds and mammals.

World Animal Protection estimates that 30 or 40 marine animals can become entangled per net. How nets are lost can vary dramatically in the same region, and depends on weather, sea conditions, vandalism or theft, or whether the fishery is operating illegally. In northern Spain, for example, one gillnet fishery loses an estimated 2,000 nets per year, while another gillnet fishery in the same region loses 100 gillnets yearly.

Net recovering programs are now setting up in coastal places around the world, from Greece to the North Sea to New Zealand. ( Learn how Indian fishermen are collecting plastic waste.)

The Danajon Bank, which extends for 97 miles between the central Philippines islands of Bohol, Leyte and Cebu, was the cradle of all Pacific marine life. As fishing declined, forcing local fishermen in the island villages to quit, NetWorks arrived in 2012 to set up a pioneering net recovery program. But as is common in poor places-more than 60 percent of local fishing families live below the U.S. poverty line-in order to save the marine species at risk, the scientists had to save the people who had lived off the seas for generations.

The net recovery program would not only clean up the waters, it would create new jobs. Former fishermen dive for nets and pull them onto shore. They are transferred to a baling station on the island of Bohol, where they are tightly compressed into cubes, then shipped to Aquafil, a net recycling company in Slovenia that buys fishing nets from around the world and turns them into nylon yarn. The yarn, in turn, makes its way to carpet manufacturers in the United States.

"We connect marine conservation with the business model that brings marginalized communities in the developing world into a mainstream global supply chain," Koldewey says.

The goal has been to build a self-sustaining business; so far, the program has shown enough promise that NetWorks has expanded to a second hub in the Philippines and to Cameroon in Central Africa and Indonesia.

"The work is part of a bigger strategy to change people's perspective on plastics. You don't have to throw plastics away because you can derive economic benefit from it," says Amado Blanco, as he takes the four-hour trip on an outrigger boat from Cebu to the tiny island of Guidacpan, where third-generation fishermen have become part of a global entrepreneurial network.

Blanco has served as the program's Philippines project manager for long enough to have seen attitudes evolve.

"People are no longer burning their nets," he says. "They are are no longer throwing nets on the shore or into the ground. They are keeping them in sacks and selling them."

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These Communities Turn Discarded Fishing Nets Into Carpets

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The Danajon Bank in the central Philippines was once a geologic treasure chest brimming with marine life. It is the only double barrier reef in the Philippines and one of only six double barrier reefs in the world.

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In South Africa's Limpopo province, a baobab tree once grew so large and stood so strong that its human neighbors decided to do the obvious: They built a pub inside the living tree's thousand-year-old hollow trunk, which measured more than 150 feet around and enclosed two interconnected cavities.

For two decades, the Sunland baobab attracted tourists wanting to knock back a pint in a tree. But in August 2016, one of the monster stems forming the interior wall cracked and collapsed. Eight months later, another huge chunk toppled over, and now, five of the giant Sunland stems have collapsed and died, leaving only half of the tree standing.

Though the Sunland tree's demise could sound like a consequence of human visitation, it's part of an alarming trend: A startlingly high percentage of the oldest, largest baobabs in Africa have died within the last 12 years, scientists report today in the journal Nature Plants.

That means the Sunland tree's fate could be a harbinger of a future without these whimsical, beloved trees. The culprit behind their deaths is still unknown, though scientists suspect that changing climate is to blame. (By contrast, the oldest tree in Europe is now having a growth spurt.)

"It is very surprising to visit monumental baobabs, with ages greater than a thousand to two thousand years, which seem to be in a good state of health, and to find them after several years fallen to the ground and dead," says study coauthor Adrian Patrut of Romania's Babes-Bolyai University.

"Statistically, it is practically impossible that such a high number of large old baobabs die in such a short time frame due to natural causes."

Looking like creatures from a Dr. Seuss illustration, baobabs are characterized by their thick trunks and sparse branches, which sometimes make the trees appear as though they've been planted upside-down. Because of the way they grow-by adding stems in a ring-shaped structure-baobabs are famous for having hollow interiors that can sometimes be big enough to entertain (or imprison) people inside. ( Meet the people replanting trees by hand in Canada.)

The oldest seed-producing trees in the world, the nine species of trees in the Adansonia genus have earned themselves a cornucopia of colloquial names and roles in folklore and legend, and they are valuable players in dry deciduous forests, deserts, and savannas from Africa to Arabia to Australia.

Patrut began studying baobabs in the early 2000s, and he has spent much of the last 15 years identifying more than 60 of the largest, oldest specimens and using radiocarbon dating to determine the trees' ages. Unlike trees such as redwoods and oaks, baobabs can't simply be aged by counting their growth rings; as the trees grow, their rings fade or are erased, and their giant interior cavities make the remaining traces difficult to count.

I think we take for granted that these giant trees have no problem.

Patrut has largely focused on the African baobab, Adansonia digitata, scattered mostly throughout continental Africa and the surrounding islands.

The majority of the largest and oldest African baobabs grow in southern Africa, he says. But since 2005, eight of the 13 oldest trees and five of the six largest have either suffered catastrophic partial collapses or completely fallen down and died. These include well-known trees that have become famous for their size or natural architecture like the Sunland baobab, as well as the sacred Panke baobab, a giant tree in Namibia called Grootboom, and Botswana's Chapman baobab.

Though it's a small data set, the trend is alarming. "We felt as if we were the ones outliving the baobabs, instead of them outliving many generations of humans," Patrut says.

National Geographic explorer Henry Ndangalasi, a botanist at the University of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, agrees that the discovery is eye-opening: "I think we take for granted that these giant trees have no problem," he says.

Patrut and colleagues do not think the trees' deaths are the work of disease, and instead suggest the wave of mortality may be the result of a hotter, drier climate. In addition to these superlative trees, the team notes that other mature baobabs are dying at an accelerated rate, particularly in areas where the African climate is warming most rapidly.

Though more work needs to be done to definitively connect the dots between climate change and baobab mortality, a different study, published in Biological Conservation, has already concluded that changing climates will harm two of the three endangered baobab species in Madagascar.

There, increasing temperatures and more extreme variations in seasonal rainfall will restrict the ranges in which these trees can grow-and the Malagasy government has not yet set aside protected areas that could be suitable in the future.

A similar, climate-related phenomenon is claiming tropical trees in the Costa Rican cloud forest, which appear to be succumbing to rising temperatures, notes National Geographic explorer Tarin Toledo Aceves, a forest ecologist at Mexico's Instituto de Ecología A.C.

"The findings of the study with baobabs is not surprising, unfortunately," she says. "There is an unexpected high mortality in the oldest baobabs in the south of Africa, but we do not know why."

Toledo Aceves also points out that the number of studied baobabs is low and says it's possible-although unlikely-that the findings are just reflecting a natural pattern of mortality in older individuals.

"These trees can live for more than two thousand years, and while the researchers are following exactly the older individuals, I think it is remarkable that more than 70 percent of them died in such a short period of time," she says.

In other words, too many trees are dying too rapidly for the trend to be natural.

"From 2005 to 2017 is about 12 years, and considering the long life span of these trees, it is rather unlikely that is a natural pattern."

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Africa's Oldest Trees Are Dying, and Scientists Are Stumped

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In South Africa's Limpopo province, a baobab tree once grew so large and stood so strong that its human neighbors decided to do the obvious: They built a pub inside the living tree's thousand-year-old hollow trunk, which measured more than 150 feet around and enclosed two interconnected cavities.

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Little robots controlled by magnets may one day be crawling through your body, delivering treatments or taking tissue samples. That's at least one use inventors at MIT envision for the soft, mobile devices they're currently creating to morph on cue.

With just a wave of a magnet, the robots can roll, jump, and crawl around in confined spaces. In the future, the MIT team hopes to build a stronger, more intelligent version of this robot that can be used for tasks such as medical procedures or cleaning up radioactive waste. (See a robot designed by another MIT team that is the most advanced robotic fish yet.)

"We want to make the robot powerful, so we're designing new magnetic inks so they can deliver more force," says Xuanhe Zhao, a coauthor on a paper about the robots published today in the journal Nature.

Each robot is designed with a unique shape and structure to match its function. A 3-D printer then uses a silicone-based rubber material to bring that design to life. The printing technique has been crucial to the robots' design, says Zhao, because it allows magnetic microparticles to be deliberately embedded throughout the material. ( This robot, meanwhile, uses living rat tissue to move.)

A computer program aligns each microparticle in a specific direction in a certain part of the robot, which allows magnetic force to trigger a desired response. For simple functions, Zhao is able to power the robots simply by waving a magnet over them. For more complex tasks, he says, the robots will need to operate inside a magnetized chamber that can apply pull simultaneously in different directions.

The research team considered a number of methods for bringing their robots to life: They've previously used electricity, thermal changes, light, and humidity to power other versions of them. Magnets, however, can be used most easily for robots placed inside the human body.

"The human body is transparent to magnetic fields," notes Zhao, which means the magnetic energy won't be blocked or weakened during use. "You can apply magnetic fields to the brain, chest, hands, and arms."

He says the method would be relatively safe for most people. The microparticles in the robots themselves have only a weak magnetic field, and the fields that are applied to active the robot are no more dangerous than those experienced during an MRI. (Find out how animals at Chernobyl are helping doctors better understand radiation risks.)

Even patients with implants like pacemakers, which electronically stimulate the heart, likely would not be impacted, he says, because the robot's magnetic field is too weak. His designs haven't yet been tested on human subjects, but he says that magnetic devices of similar strength are already being used to guide catheters into human bodies.

Beyond medical uses, the team is working with naval research groups to apply the technology for military use. Their ultimate goal is to design a robot that's just as soft and flexible as a human or animal, so that it can have a wide range of potential applications, perhaps by using a combination of magnetism and electricity to power its movements. ( Meet Sophia, the robot that looks almost human.)

"If you can design such a material similar to living creatures," Zhao says, "you can have them do many things."

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These Soft, Magnetic Robots May One Day Crawl Inside Your Body

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Little robots controlled by magnets may one day be crawling through your body, delivering treatments or taking tissue samples. That's at least one use inventors at MIT envision for the soft, mobile devices they're currently creating to morph on cue. With just a wave of a magnet, the robots can roll, jump, and crawl around in confined spaces.

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A formação de um bebê ( Reprodução Humana)

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Animação 3D sobre o processo de respiração

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https://www.casadasciencias.org/5encontrointernacional/

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Prática Experimental com alunos do 5º ano-Camadas do Solo

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Preparação de visitas de estudo e saídas de campo: desenvolvimento de competências técnicas e científicas.

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Preparação de visitas de estudo e saídas de campo: desenvolvimento de competências técnicas e científicas.

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Perfil dos Alunos à saída da escolaridade básica

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Perfil dos Alunos à saída da escolaridade básica

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Aprendizagens essenciais  ciências naturais 2º ciclo

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Aprendizagens essenciais  ciências naturais 2º ciclo

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Vídeo - Reinventar a educação para enfrentar o futuro

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Vídeo - Reinventar a educação para enfrentar o futuro

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCPnPvOJ6o8

Os bons professores devem mudar o papel que desempenharam até agora para se tornarem a força motriz por trás do talento dos seus alunos. A curiosidade e a criação artística, estão inscritas no DNA do ser humano, por isso devemos perguntar-nos o que fazemos de errado com as crianças para que percam essas inquietudes quando se tornam adultos, diz Tony Wagner, um dos maiores especialistas do mundo em educação e diretor do Laboratório de Inovação da Universidade de Harvard.

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20 mar, 2018 - 22:09 * Fotografias: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

A bordo do "Arctic Sunrise", com vários jornalistas e cientistas a bordo, o navio da Greenpeace partiu de Punta Arenas, no Chile, com o propósito de recolher imagens, amostras de espécies e de água para deteção de microplásticos.

A Greenpeace alia-se à proposta da União Europeia de criar a maior área protegida à face da terra, com 1,8 milhões de quilómetros quadrados. Será um paraíso para a vida marinha, livre de pesca intensiva.

A proposta para a área protegida é de quase dois milhões de quilómetros quadrados no Mar de Weddell, um habitat natural de baleias, focas, pinguins e várias espécies de peixes. A discussão da proposta vai acontecer em outubro deste ano na Austrália durante a Convenção para a Conservação da Vida Marinha. A ideia foi originalmente lançada pela União Europeia e está a receber apoio da Greenpace.

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Antártida poderá ter a maior área protegida do mundo - Renascença

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20 mar, 2018 - 22:09 * Fotografias: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters A bordo do "Arctic Sunrise", com vários jornalistas e cientistas a bordo, o navio da Greenpeace partiu de Punta Arenas, no Chile, com o propósito de recolher imagens, amostras de espécies e de água para deteção de microplásticos.

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Partilha do trabalho prático/experimental partilhado ao longo das aulas  

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Elaboração de Guião com exploração interativa

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Partilha do trabalho prático/experimental 

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Partilha do trabalho prático/experimental 

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1.  Partilha de trabalhos práticos ao nível de verificações e/ou demonstrações.                       No 2º ciclo existem diversos atividades previstas, de acordo com os conteúdos lecionados.

2. Exemplos:
Identificação  dos órgãos
respiratórios do peixe;                         Mecanismo de ventilação;

Identificação de amostras
de rochas;
A água é um bom
solvente?
Propriedades do ar.

3. Constrangimentos à
execução das atividades :
falta de espaços com
condições para a
realização das atividades;
turmas com elevado
número de alunos;
falta de material.

Trabalho realizado por: Helena Cardoso, Álvaro Faria, Margarida Rocha, Isabel Paupério, Marli Leite, Manuela Costa, Teresa Silva, Magda Ferreira

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A SpaceX do multimilionário Elon Musk, que lançou um foguete poderoso em direção a Marte em fevereiro, pode realizar voos de teste interplanetários no próximo ano, com o objetivo de assegurar a sobrevivência da espécie humana, disse Musk.

Este vaivém poderá realizar "voos curtos, de ida e volta, provavelmente já no primeiro semestre do próximo ano", disse Musk na conferência "SXSW" em Austin, Texas.

O objetivo a longo prazo desses projetos é a construção de bases na Lua ou em Marte, o que poderia garantir a sobrevivência da raça humana e, assim, promover a sua regeneração na Terra no caso de uma terceira guerra mundial, disse o bilionário.

Existe, de facto, uma "certa probabilidade" de que a humanidade pode enfrentar uma "era das trevas", "especialmente se acontece uma terceira guerra mundial", disse o bilionário, também o dono da conhecida marca de automóveis elétricos Tesla.

"Queremos garantir que o Homem permaneça noutro lugar (para além da Terra) como uma semente da civilização humana, para que possa trazer de volta a civilização e talvez diminuir a duração da idade das trevas", afirmou.

Nesta perspetiva, "uma base lunar e uma base marciana, que poderiam talvez ajudar a regenerar a vida aqui na Terra, seria realmente importante".

Aos 46 anos, Elon Musk é um dos empresários inovadores com mais sucesso nos Estados Unidos.

Outra das suas inovações para reduzir o custo dos voos espaciais, que visam levar seres humanos a Marte até 2024, é conseguir reutilizar os foguetões de propulsão, que voltam a Terra em perfeitas condições de reutilização.

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Nova missão da Spacex? Assegurar a vida humana noutros planetas - Renascença

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A SpaceX do multimilionário Elon Musk, que lançou um foguete poderoso em direção a Marte em fevereiro, pode realizar voos de teste interplanetários no próximo ano, com o objetivo de assegurar a sobrevivência da espécie humana, disse Musk.

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Here's the footprint of an Earthling a long, long way from home.

You know the one-it's Neil Armstrong's boot print on the surface of the moon. "A giant leap," he called it. Well, here's another leap-arguably just as "giant," though a touch more obscure. It was discovered in a dark slab of rock that hangs on the edge of the North Atlantic in a remote corner of Newfoundland ...

It's an impression left by another Earthling, an odd-looking ocean dweller that lived roughly 565 million years ago and that was maybe the first creature-certainly the first we know of-to use its own muscles to move from where it was to someplace new.

We call them Ediacarans, or more properly, 'ediacaran organisms'. They're a weird family, some flowerlike, some like little plops of mud, this one a little like a palm leaf or maybe a ribbed pancake ...

But what a pancake! As described by Robert Moor in his new book, On Trails: An Exploration, one of these things

"... did something virtually unprecedented on this planet-it shivered, swelled, reached forth, scrunched up, and in doing so, at an imperceptibly slow pace, began to move across the sea floor, leaving a trail behind it."

The path it carved that day in the ocean mud-now frozen and fossilized-is the oldest trail we've ever seen on Earth, laughably small compared to Neil Armstrong's journey, but it's The Beginning, our beginning, the very first evidence of animal-like locomotion.

A volcano must have poured lava on a patch of ocean millions of years ago, freezing every living creature in place, until slowly the earth shifted, and the rock layer surfaced, then got sculpted and exposed, so now if you go to Mistaken Point on the Newfoundland coast, you can see scores of them, fern-like, blob-like, pancake-like ...

This is a famous site, well-known to fossil hunters. But, as sometimes happens, new eyes can find what everybody else missed, and when a young paleobiologist from Oxford, Alexander Liu, came by in 2008 and scrunched down to see what he could (this is him lying sideways on the rocks, shoes off, booties on to protect the fossils) ...

... he noticed what first looked like a slime trail, a thumb-wide path that crossed the rock surface ...

Moor visited more recently, and when he ran his fingers over this same fossil pathway (there were a bunch of them on those rocks) he wrote, "They bore the distinct texture of life. Their surface was patterned with a series of nesting arcs: ))))))"

You can see these clearly at the upper end, but they're in the middle too ...

Those may be the traces of a suction cup foot that these creatures probably used to fasten themselves to rocks or flat surfaces on the ocean bottom. Sea anemones behave that way today: They latch onto flat ground but occasionally pry themselves loose and take lumbering "steps" when it's time to travel.

In 2009, Alexander Liu and colleagues wrote a paper suggesting that these ancient creatures were not floating or squirming or rolling or reaching. No, they were "crawling." These were primitive proto-steps, and you can see each step as a series of nesting parentheses.

Critics said they could just as easily be tracks made by pebbles tossed by waves, but when the experts looked, most concluded Liu is right. Those aren't pebble tracks. Those are trails-our earliest evidence of locomotion, of life on the move.

Why Go Anywhere?

The question is, Why bother? Why move?

Were they hunting food? Looking for sex? Fleeing a predator? Or-and here I get back to Neil Armstrong-were they just on a walkabout, wondering what lies beyond the next hump of sand?

There wasn't a lot going on in the ocean 565 million years ago. The Earth was recovering from a deep chill that left the sea bottoms, Moor writes, "devoid of predators," empty-ish. Same for the sea. There wasn't much to look at: "Perhaps a primitive jellyfish would have passed overhead like a living cloud."

With no pressing reason to move about, I'm thinking that maybe what pushed these pioneers to travel was (how to put this?) a touch of restlessness, a behavior that would be passed down the great chain of life as animals moved in greater arcs, butterflying their way to Mexico, flying from Canada to the tip of Argentina, circumnavigating the globe, lifting off the planet, and, ultimately, landing on the moon.

That's why we move, I like to think: to see, to stretch, to have more choices.

But when Moor asks this same question ("Why do we, as animals, uproot ourselves and go somewhere else?") he doesn't go to restlessness. The creatures that invented locomotion, paleobiologist Liu tells him, probably wanted security-a clean, flat surface to cling to. Surfaces crack, shift. When life becomes too hard where you are, you go to where it's easier.

They didn't want adventure, they wanted comfort.
The two explanations sound opposite, but they're not. No place stays safe forever, not even our little blue planet. At some point, out of restlessness or desperation, it doesn't matter which, you have to do that thing that the pancakes invented 565 million years ago-you don't have a choice. Nature knew that early. So Earthlings learned it early.

You either move-or you die.

So we moved. And we never stopped.

Robert Moor's new book On Trails: An Exploration (it will be out in a few weeks) is a meditation on paths-not just the paths that ancient creatures made, but also ant paths, elephant paths, footpaths, the paths in our brains and in our machines. Moor, a guy who likes to walk, does the full Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, walks along highways, loses a trail full of sheep, messes with ants, befriends all sorts of fellow walkers, and as he wanders, he wonders how paths form, change and last. Hanging with him you meet a host of different byways, get in (and out) of trouble and the experience is not just enlightening, it's sweaty, hot, cold and ... well, to say it plainly ... fun.

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Our Earliest Example of an Animal Moving on Its Own

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Here's the footprint of an Earthling a long, long way from home. You know the one-it's Neil Armstrong's boot print on the surface of the moon. "A giant leap," he called it. Well, here's another leap-arguably just as "giant," though a touch more obscure.