Ask A Biologist
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Type of site
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Biology education |
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| Owner | ASU School of Life Sciences |
| Slogan(s) | Just Ask! |
| Website | http://askabiologist.asu.edu/ |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | None |
| Launched | Fall 1997 |
| Current status | Active |
Ask A Biologist is a science outreach program originating from Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences.
Ask A Biologist is a pre-kindergarten through high school program dedicated to answering questions from students, their teachers, and parents. The primary focus of the program is to connect students and teachers with working scientists through a question and answer Web e-mail form. The companion website also includes a large collection of free content and activities that can be used inside, as well as outside, of the classroom. The award-winning program has been continuously running for more than 14 years, with the assistance of more than 150 volunteer scientists, faculty, and graduate students in biology and related fields. In 2010 the program released its new website interface and features that became the subject for articles in the journals Science and PLoS Biology.
Ask A Biologist materials are free and open to anyone with access to the World-Wide-Web. The question portion of the program serves primarily students, grades preK-12, as well as their teachers and parents. In addition, lifelong learners are encouraged to use the website materials.
Ask A Biologist was launched late in 1997 in the School of Life Sciences, with an early version viewable on the Internet Archive a.k.a. The WayBackMachine. Initially, the site consisted solely of a question submission form, a feature that remains one of its core activities.
By 2001, the site had grown to over 1,000 pages of content, including articles about current research, profiles of scientists, an image gallery, mystery images, puzzles, coloring pages, quizzes, and science activities.
In 2003, the website released the Virtual Pocket Seed Experiment, the first of several data sets that could be used in and outside of the classroom. The experiment was based on the classic seed germination experiment, but included the feature of time-lapse animation of various seed experiments.
In 2004, a second data set was released, in cooperation with Audubon Arizona. The Virtual Bird Aviary, included the majority of bird species found in the Southwest United States including more than 400 vocal recordings and companion sonograms, bird images, text descriptions, and range maps.
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