My name is Deanna McBeath and I've been teaching middle school for ten awesome years! Right now I teach 5th and 6th grade science at the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago, IL. I fell in love with science while growing up in Kentucky and Costa Rica, both of which have absolutely stunning natural environments to explore, from Mammoth Cave – the largest underground cave system in the world – to the many volcanoes and rainforests and precolumbian archaeological sites in Central America. Was I a lucky kid, or what? I love all kinds of science, but I get especially fired up when teaching about biodiversity, evolution, and earth science, and my favorite part is getting kids all fired up, too!I just learned about Shape of Life this year at the NSTA conference, and I was so excited to try it out. I knew it would fit perfectly into the unit I was about to start with my 5th grade students about evolution and biodiversity...