"Learning from the Chimpanzees: A Message Humans Can Understand"
Jane Goodall (1998)

URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/150essay.shl (click link)

SITE SUMMARY: Goodall, an ethnologist and conservationist, has studied chimpanzees in the wild for nearly fifty years at Gombe Stream Research Center, Gombe National Park, Tanzania, Africa. Now she heads the Jane Goodall Institute, set up in 1977 and dedicated to the conservation and understanding of wildlife. In this essay, Goodall reveals ways that scientists traditionally studied animals and the changes in the scientific study of animals that she and others helped to bring about. (This essay is one of a group of Essays on Science and Society written by various authors from 1848 through 1998 and represent the best Science Magazine articles of one hundred fifty years.)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

1. Read paragraphs one, two, and three. When Goodall began her study of wild chimpanzees, which three things about animals wouldn't ethnologists talk about because scientists did not think of them as "hard sciences"? What, did Goodall say, did one ethnologist acknowledge, yet thought should be "swept under the carpet"? What are four things Goodall didn't realize animals aren't supposed to have? What did she not realize was unscientific to discuss about animals, according to ethnologists of that time?
2. Read more of paragraphs one, two, and three. What was something that was supposed to be appropriate to do and what was something that was not appropriate to do when studying animals? If, according to Goodall, someone "in scientific circles" did ______, what was she or he guilty of? How did Goodall defy an editor when she wrote her first scientific paper, and how did this help chimpanzees?
3. Read paragraph four. (See also the Web site: Discover Chimpanzees. [Its url is cited in the Related Internet Sites section below.]) What did Goodall, in her first observations, discover chimpanzees could do? What problem did this cause, according to her mentor, Louis Leakey, in his telegram to her? How did people react to this discovery? What other observations of chimpanzee behavior by Goodall were people fascinated by? Who was David Greybeard, what did he do, and why was he important to what Goodall discovered?
4. Read paragraphs six and seven. What gradually became fashionable in animal study? How did this come about, in part, especially during the 1960s? What then became impossible, what was proven, and how? What has changed today with reference to ethnology? What is now commonplace? What has happened because of new information acquired in the 1960s?
5. While keeping Question/Activity no. 4 above in mind, read paragraph five. What special project was started in the mid-1960s? What was involved and what was it supposed to teach? Who were the two people involved? What did the scientists' discovery imply? How did the scientific community react? What did some other scientists do as a result of the discovery? What did these scientists confirm? (For some help, see the Web document "Can Chimps Talk?" [Its url is cited in the Related Internet Sites section below.])
6. Read paragraph eight. In addition to what you found by answering Question/Activity no. 3 above, what are five other facts that have emerged from Goodall's years of research involving the Gombe chimpanzees? As a result of these facts, what are now people's, both non-scientists' and scientists', attitudes and society's concern? What do you think you can do to show your concern? Explain. (For some help, see the Jane Goodall Institute Web site. Its url is cited in the Related Internet Sites section below.)
7. Visit a zoo, but before your visit, read the story about a happening at the Detroit Zoo that Goodall tells in her essay. What happened between a man and a chimpanzee there? What is something in the story, actually the man's reason for doing something, that you may be able to do at the zoo? Prepare to take notes on a chimpanzee and on another animal that have as many of Goodall's seven facts you can include, plus, if possible, what you referred to when answering the question just above on the man's reason for doing something. Include as well, two other things Goodall did, which you discovered when answering Question/Activity no. 2 above. After your zoo visit, write two three-hundred-word essays based on your observations and notes.

RELATED INTERNET SITE(S)

Jane Goodall Institute

http://www.janegoodall.org/sitemap/index.html

Check links to Jane Goodall's Reasons for Hope and biography links (e.g., Day in the Life, Curriculum Vitae, Publications), Chimpanzees (e.g., characteristics, habitat, social organization, and communication), Jane Goodall Institute information (e.g., FAQs, links, programs, sanctuaries), Roots and Shoots (an environmental program and involvement activities for young people), and News (e.g., on the Institute's research, Chimpanzoo, and Jane's travels).

Discover Chimpanzees

http://www.discoverchimpanzees.org

At this site, created by the Science Museum of Minnesota, with the National Science Foundation, and the University of Minnesota, click links to Meet Featured Researcher, Meet Featured Chimpanzee, Gombe Update, or Try Featured Activity. In the upper left, place a mouse arrow to see a pull-down menu with links to Meet the Researchers, Meet the Chimpanzees, Tour Gombe, and links. Find out about the Jane Goodall Institute's Center for Primate Studies via a link on the Meet the Researchers page.

"Can Chimps Talk?" February 15, 1994

http://pubpages.unh.edu/∼jel/nova.html

This transcript of an interview on a PBS-TV NOVA program features psychologists Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the University of Nevada and their pioneering work in the 1960s.

Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute

http://www.cwu.edu/∼cwuchci/main.html

Featured are FAQs, Enrichment, Chimpanzee Biographies, Next of Kin, and Friends, plus Teacher Information.

Excerpt from "If a Chimpanzee Could Talk" (1997), by Jerry H. Gill

http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/samples/sam1011.htm