I'll just mention two things I do that have worked well:
1. The first group we look at is molluscs, rather than porifera or
other "lower groups." The lab begins with a clam
dissection (fresh from the local seafood market) and then looks at
bivalve function
a la Steve Stanley. The idea is to start
with a group that is at least somewhat familiar to students and has
fairly clear relationships between preserved hard part morphology,
original soft part morphology, and mode of life.
2. The vertebrate lab (which I am teaching today) is done
cladistically. They start with amphioxus and work up the tree by
derived characters.
-Roy
Roy E. Plotnick
Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago
845 W. Taylor St.
Chicago, IL 60607
plotnick@uic.edu
office phone: 312-996-2111 fax:
312-413-2279
lab phone: 312-355-1342
web page:
http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm
"The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and
glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to
oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women,
Louisa May Alcott