1) The original film, “The Miracle of Life”, from the mid 1980s — fortunately, not much has changed since then in terms of the basics and the photo and video footage they use continues to be incredible: https://archive.org/details/NOVATheMiracleOfLifeLinks to an external site.
The film is truly amazing to watch from the beginning, discussing many important details of the female and male reproductive system and setting the stage for a deeper understanding of the physiology that leads to conception. But, if you are strapped for time, at minute 37:00 the sperm reaches the egg and at around minute 44:00 cell division post conception is discussed and the developing zygote/embryo/fetus is then followed to birth.
2) The remake film “Life’s Greatest Miracle”:
https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-lifes-greatest-miracle/Links to an external site.
Keep in mind, regardless of which one you watch:
It is useful to have read through our module objectives first so you know what to look for.
It can also be helpful to have read some or most of the reading, especially around the concept of prenatal development being organized into 3 periods: germinal/zygotic, embryonic, and fetal.
Both have some amount of somewhat cringy references to the process of attraction and end with a depiction of birth. Life is cringy sometimes but oh so interesting!
It is almost an hour long but it is a rich and valuable journey that will cover any number of relevant issues around nature/nurture interactions and the prenatal journey. It is a good investment of your time! Break it up into 15 minute quarters if you find that easier to schedule.
Then, simply respond with a summary of two points in your own words that you particularly enjoyed learning about from this film, perhaps something surprising or fascinating that went beyond what you had read in the text about this topic.
