The history of hair: tracing its roots to early origins

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Biology, Physics and Chemistry.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Wilfred D. Stein, whose research has involved diving into genome databases to discover the origins of hair-producing cells, and to investigate how similar genes present themselves in other animals.
• This resource also contains an interview with Wilfred, providing an insight into careers in biophysics.
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Wilfred’s research, and tasks them to explore evolutionary relationships between different organisms.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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