The Guardian Frogs of Borneo

Students will pick one of the supplied adjectives and categorize it to one of the sexes, and provide an example of a nonhuman animal that demonstrates this adjective. The idea is to have students think about their preconceptions about sex roles. We define it here for you, but won't introduce this term until part 2. A reason for this is that the utility of the term sex roles itself is being argued about in the scientific literature.

We want students to understand that there is a general pattern of how male and female animals tend to behave, but these are not actually prescriptive roles and there is a great deal of variation within and across species.

Students each get at least 1 card from the ♧ Role With It Cards. This card is their "specimen" (male or female of a species), which they will introduce to the class as they collect its data. Each card has provided sexual signal values (from 0 to 3) for visual and acoustic (sound) traits. Zero means a specimen doesn't have that type of signal; 3 means that sex of that species has a very exaggerated trait. Students will build a dataset of relative sexual signal elaboration (e.g. how fancy the feathers and songs are) and parental investment for each sex across 12 different species.

The presentation guides the game. When a specimen's common name is called, the student with that card must stand up and introduce it. They will repeat their name 3-5 times at a volume corresponding to the Acoustic Signal Score on their card. Simultaneously, they will do a dance that is at the level of the Visual Display Score on their card.

After the introduction, the student will read for their classmates the Parental Investment information on the card. Everyone then records display scores and parental contributions, which they will use for futher analysis. Then the next card is introduced.

Each student should have at least 1 card. In small classes, students may have several. In a large class (>24), you will need to have more than 1 deck to allow each student to have a card. If you have multiple students introducing a specimen, you should call on one to read the Parental Contributions section.

Everything downstream requires that all students collect the data they are introducing. Students will likely need periodic reminders to focus and take down the data to move on. We've added the timers as a reminder.

If you don't quite get through the P1 Presentation, simply collect student papers (you can have them place cards on top of their worksheet packet and stack them). They should have recorded which cards they had on Q1-5, as well, so it's straightforward to pick up where you left off on data collection at the last species in Table 1 on the worksheet.

Students will copy their Total Sexual Signaling Scores and Total Parental Investment Scores from Table 1 to Table 2. They will then right the correct symbol (<, >, or =), according to how male and female scores compare to each other.

After reorganizing their raw data in Table 2, students should add up each category of scores to get totals. Students will know if their data is valid (correct) if the column totals equal the expected checksums. If not, they should work with a classmate to find the error before coming to you to troubleshoot.

What students should independently learn from this analysis:

• there is a lot of variation in nature
• when one sex contributes significantly more parental investment, it frees the other sex to evolve adaptations to compete for mates
• while the majority of species have "caring females" and "competitive males" (conventional sex roles), there are many cases where both parents contribute equivalently, and some species show sex role reversal

This looping video alternates between showing a planetary view of where we're going in this trip to sights and sounds from the field.

We show the 3 countries that claim the island of Borneo: Malaysia, Indonesia, and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. The rest of the lesson will focus on the research Dr. Johana Goyes Vallejos conducted in Brunei.

Here we introduce the term sex roles and conventional sex roles in particular to describe the finding that in 75% of the species we looked at in Parts 1-2, males were "competitive" and females were "caring." We then highlight the exceptional species (pipefish, jacanas, and guardian frogs).

This video sets up the background information and sets up the driving question for Part 3: "Is the Smooth Guardian Frog fo Borneo the first sex-role-reversed frog species known to science?"

Students will determine if the Guardian Frogs meet a set of 3 criteria to be considered the first sex role reversed frog species. Two are provided in the background information (Males are known to provide parental care by guarding eggs and transporting tadpoles to water; females are also known to call, which is normally a trait only found in males). Students will spend the rest of the class time testing out the third criteria: Do females signal more often than males?

In order to complete the primary task, students will have to compare the units of the X and Y axis on a scatter plot to the values in the table in order to figure out how to label the figure. They will also have to compare the relative values of males and females in order to label the legend key. Once they have figured out the main task, students are asked to interpret whether the data meet criterion 3: that females call more than males (they do). Finally, students are asked to write a persuasive paragraph synthesizing what they have learned to explain why guardian frogs deserve more research funding and what will be lost if they are allowed to go extinct.