BIOLOGY DIVISION WILL USE MOTION PICTURES

The first systematic use of motion pictures in the United States to illustrate courses in biology, is being effected in Biology A at Harvard, according to J. A. Haeseler, Director of the Film Foundation, who is cooperating with Associate Professor Jeffries Wyman of the Biology Department in bringing the plan into operation. A series of experimental showings is being carried on in conjunction with the regular lectures in the second half of Biology A, which deals with zoology, and already five showings have been given, depicting the lives and habits of protozoa, invertebrates, and vertebrates, and exhibiting important studies in embryology.

The main advantage of the motion picture method of teaching biology is that various processes, microscopic and otherwise, can be filmed at great length, and then speeded up in exhibition, thus depicting the entire process in a short time, and laying emphasis on significant stages of development, arbitrarily chosen by the producer in his laboratory. Thus the necessarily limited scope of laboratory instruction can be supplemented with "living" specimens from all parts of the world, including many which are unavailable in a laboratory, and "biology ceases to be a course depending upon words, charts and black board diagrams."