Educational inequities remain one of the most persistent and intractable problems in our society. Without equity, the STEM workforce will be unable to meet the needs of the growing economy and will also suffer from stunted innovation. Despite widespread efforts to increase access to and inclusion in STEM, minoritized students remain excluded from both STEM majors and STEM professions. The reasons for this exclusion are complex but instructors can play an active role in disrupting these inequities.

Flying snakes are perhaps the world’s most unconventional gliders, turning their body into a wing by changing shape and undulating in the air. In this talk, I’ll discuss our experimental and theoretical efforts to understand the biomechanical features that underly this unique form of flight. Some of these specializations, such as jumping to cross gaps, also appear in sister taxa, suggesting that some aspects of their glide system were evolutionarily co-opted.