The Developmental Origins of Mythology: A Pandemic-Inspired Innovative Developmental Biology Laboratory Exercise

From an experiential, hands-on perspective, the Developmental Biology Laboratory is easily amenable to a wide range of undergraduate-friendly experiments. Thus, pivoting to a virtual laboratory during the COVID-19 pandemic required significant reconfiguring to capture the essence of student-driven experiments. The innovative laboratory activity described here was inspired by the nuggets of truth contained within many of the mythological origin stories. Students were asked to propose a logical developmental process that could lead to a specific mythological creature. In this article, the mythology-based developmental biology activity is described, including its inspiration, instructions and support for the students, and sample work.