Optional Activities
Additional Activities
- Depth Perception Test: Use two cardboard tubes as “eyes.” Hold them forward-facing (primate style) and judge distance to a small object. Then offset them wide (prey-animal style) and try again. Forward-facing eyes give depth perception; wide-set eyes give wider field of view. Which helps with catching prey vs avoiding it?
- Primate Tool Use Comparison Research three primates (chimpanzee, capuchin monkey, and one other of their choice) and document what tools each one uses in the wild, how they hold them, and what the grip looks like. Compare to human tool use. Build a comparison table and analyze what opposable thumb mobility adds at each level.
- Jane Goodall’s Tool Discovery: When Goodall first observed chimpanzees making and using tools to extract termites, her mentor Louis Leakey said they would have to “redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.” Research the story and discuss: why was this discovery so significant for the boundary between humans and other animals?
- Dunbar Number Research: Anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed that primate brain size correlates with social group size. Humans can maintain about 150 stable relationships; chimps about 50; baboons about 30. Does this support the idea that large primate brains evolved primarily for social life? What other hypotheses exist?