--- title: How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microscope and wildlife filming — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microscope and wildlife filming», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Science about living things starts with looking very carefully: a girl in the park who d --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / How scientists find out: naturalists,… # How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microscope and wildlife filming Lesson 264 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/0/) — Science about living things starts with looking very carefully: a girl in the park who draws a beetle in her notebook, writes the date and counts its legs is doing what naturalists have always done. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/1/) — Careful notes let other people check and compare; Charles Darwin filled notebooks on his round-the-world voyage on the ship Beagle, then worked for over 20 years before publishing his big idea in 1859. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/2/) — New tools open hidden worlds: the microscope showed cells and bacteria, ringing birds' legs shows where they travel, and camera traps film snow leopards that people almost never see. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/3/) — A good experiment is a fair test that changes only one thing at a time, and good scientists repeat it, try to prove their own ideas wrong, and are not ashamed to say «I was wrong». - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/6/) — Charles Darwin sailed around the world on the Beagle from 1831 to 1836, collecting animals, plants and fossils. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/7/) — In the Galapagos Islands, Darwin noticed that animals on different islands were slightly different, and he published his famous book in 1859, after more than 20 years of work, because his idea was very surprising and he wanted plenty of careful evidence first. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/8/) — Darwin's finches have beaks suited to seeds, insects or cactus; over many generations birds whose beaks fitted the food survived better, so beaks changed. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/9/) — In the 1970s Peter and Rosemary Grant measured finch beaks changing in just a few years after a drought. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/10/) — Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a cloth seller rather than a trained scientist, made tiny single-lens microscopes that magnified about 200 times or more and showed living cells and bacteria. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/11/) — Wildlife filmmakers wait quietly in hides for weeks or months and use hidden cameras, drones and night cameras so as not to disturb animals; a single minute of film can take weeks. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/12/) — Camera traps take pictures when an animal moves past, which helps count rare animals such as snow leopards, and each snow leopard can be recognised by its own spot pattern. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/13/) — Bird ringing tells scientists where birds travel and how long they live; an albatross called Wisdom, ringed in 1956, was still laying eggs at over 70 years old. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/14/) — A fair test changes only one thing at a time and keeps everything else the same, and scientists repeat experiments to check that a result is not luck. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/15/) — Some old nature films staged scenes, like a 1958 film that showed lemmings being pushed off a cliff, though real lemmings do not leap to their deaths; today good films tell you when a scene was filmed in a studio, a zoo or a special set. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/16/) — From 1960 Jane Goodall watched chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, and saw one poke a grass stem into a termite mound to fish out termites, showing that chimps make and use tools; before that, many thought only humans made tools. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/264-how-scientists-find-out-naturalists-darwin-the-microscope-and-wildlife-filming/17/) — Science changes its mind when new evidence comes, as with the old idea of fierce «alpha» wolves fighting to lead a pack, which scientists later said was wrong for wild wolves. - ← previous: [The human body deeper: bones, muscles and skin](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/263-human-body-deeper-bones-muscles-and-skin/) - next →: [Tyrannosaurus rex: what we really know, from teeth and dung to tiny arms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/265-tyrannosaurus-rex-teeth-dung-and-tiny-arms/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)