Hey--I have to write a myth with a god or goddess about how something in nature was created. My favorite is why and how fireflies or butterflies were created. I just need some help on how to build onto those ideas, any suggestions would be terrific!
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The gift if light was given to the firefly to aid it in finding its mate by the Goddess of Love.  She felt pity for the fly who was condemned to fly at night by the Goddess of War in order to irritate the warriors both day and night.\n\nNot from any real myth, just a starting point, one writer to another.
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The story of Pyramus and Thisbe from Greek Mythology:\nhttp://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_pyramusthisbe.htm\n\nThe story is made fun of as the play within the Shakespeare play "Midsummer Night's Dream"
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Here are a couple of good, easy sites:\n\nhttp://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0197622.html\n\nhttp://www.online-mythology.com/
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Edith Hamilton's 'Mythology' is an excellent source for Greco-Roman myths.  It also has some stuff about Norse mythology  It's a good-sized book, too....not just some little picturebook.
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In the beginning, there was Chaos, formless darkness, and from within Chaos emerged Gaia, Eros, Erebus and Nyx, (Earth, Love, Darkness and Night.) Gaia's first creation was her mate, Uranos, the Heavens, whom she created to be Her equal and partner. She then adorned herself with hills, rivers  and nymphs to watch over them, as well as the Old Man of the Sea, Pontus, without any help from her mate. She was the creatrix. \n\nEros caused them to desire one another, and Earth and Heaven produced many children together including the Hecatonchires, the Cyclopes and the Titans. The Titans had the power of creation, like their Parents, and Uranos was jealous of it and would not let them emerge from Her womb, though it was Gaia's intention that the power of Creation be passed on. Finally, She gave to Her youngest son Cronus a stone sickle and He snuck up on Uranos as He was bedding down with Gaia and castrated Uranos, who fled, and that is why the Heavens and the Earth are separate now. \n\nThe severed organ was cast into the Sea and gave rise to Aphrodite, the spirit of creative desire on Earth. Where the drops of blood fell on Earth sprung Giants, Erineyes (Furies) and Meliae (tree nymphs who later bore mankind). All of the Titans then emerged from Gaia's womb and began creating like mad, filling the Earth with mortal life and taking their rightful places as Gods and Goddesses of their various realms. Hyperion and Thea for example bore Dawn, the Sun and the Moon, etc.\n\n(Nyx and Erebus, by the way, are the parents of Dreams, Sleep, Fate, Doom, Nemesis, Strife, etc.)\n\nCronus, who as the one who freed them all from their imprisonment was now the King of the Gods,feared that one day He would have a son who would depose Him, so as each of His children were born to His wife Rhea, He swallowed them, as the Trojan Man had yet to be created. Finally, Rhea hid Her son, Zeus, and gave Cronus a stone to swallow.  Zeus grew up, hidden by Gaia and Uranos, and rased on honey by the Meliae and when He became an adult, He tricked Cronus into vomiting up all of His brothers and sisters. He also mustered some of the other children of Gaia, the Hecatonchires, for example and some of the Titans to depose Cronus and there was a great war and finally, Zeus & co. won and the other guys were cast into darkness. Zeus became King of the Gods. The end.
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the first thing you need to do is examine the question:  how old is greek mythology?  pretty old, of course.  but it's not older than egyptian mythology, and norse mythology evolved totally independent of greek mythology.  so there's a good case that people are going to have mythology whether there was a special greek kind or not.  your teacher should be looking for this answer.  in any case, focus on the dates and show that mythology was alive and well both before the greek sort and after and you're golden.
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Dear corky,\n\nhave you read the book yet?  What sort of presentation are you expected to do?\n\nYou could always look at critiquing the work.  The premise of the story is how human (in this case children) would behave when they are faced with various circumstances and pressure of nature and need for survival.\n\nYou could also analyse how the kids "organize" themselves - the formation of "society" on the island.\n\nYou could analyze how the kids built their own "religion" or belief system.\n\nYou could analyze how the author portray human nature.  Would these pointers be enough?
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well, i would make HER a goddess of nature and her powers could kinda like be herbology(?). she would watch over all animals, insects, and whatever else. she could shape-shift into anything animal like, trees(yeah, she protect trees), um. . . stuff like that. her existence could be some mean people were burning a Forrest cause they thought hades(is that right?) had unleashed a demon to destroy them cause someone in the village had helped Zeus with something. so she protects the Forrest and well. . .  a name. .. deniora??  if u give me your IM ID i will send u the perfect pic. . . good luck!!!
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What a cool project!  So to answer one of your questions, the crucial distinction among your phyla will be whether or not they're chordates -- which of course includes the vertebrates (but also some invertebrates such as sea squirts and certain worms).  \n\nSo your bipedal wolf (I'm assuming the missing d was a typo, but if "bipeal" is a word from your universe, please let me know) would be phylum chordata, class vertebrata, order mammalia, family canidae, genus canus, species lupus bipedalis (and I'm envisioning something like a cross between Lawrence Talbot and Speaker-to-Animals, without retractible claws).  But that's just off the top of my head.\n\nOne thing I've discussed with my ten-year-old son is the absence of hexapod vertebrates -- e.g. flying horses, winged dragons, etc.  If you were closer, I'd invite you over for coffee and an all-day discussion of where to classify them, and how they evolved.  Since all terrestrial vertebrates have essentially the same structure, it's clear they all shared a common ancestor which makes hexapodal vertebrates, sadly, impossible in our known universe -- so was there a hexapodal (imaginary) marine vertebrate who also scuttled across the floors of silent seas before crawling out of the surf and saying "Hey, the carcharodons can't get me here!  Kewl!"?  ...Which of course suggests all sorts of hexapodal marine vertebrates that shared the same skeletal architecture.  Ooooh, fun.\n\nAnd the final question... so zoology is the study of animals.  There's also cryptozoology, which I've described flippantly as "the study of imaginary animals."  But of course, it's more technically the study of animals that may or may not exist.  So what would we call your zoology, which is the study of animals you've intentionally invented?  Oh, of course, poeiazoology (-poeia, meaing to construct -- as in mythopoeia, the term Tolkien invented to describe the invention of mythologies.)\n\nAnd on that note, elen sila lumen omentielvo!
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Wikipedia is a very good start for this. This page summarizes the beliefs behind many different creation myths. It is sorted by culture / ethnic group / religion and provides external sourcing.
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Ancient Greece offers us a wealth in all the areas you listed. Their dramas are still pertinent to this day ie the conflict of divided loyalties as presented in Sophocles "Antigone". We can learn much about human nature by exploring the mythology created by the Greeks as they sought to explain humans and their existence. They produced beautiful as well as utilitarian structures that celebrated life. They became a spring board for the developing mythologies of the East as they endeavored to portray deities as more accessible and supportive.
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Something I always found interesting would be something similar to Myth Busters. Perhaps find a myth or an old wives tale that you would like to disprove. That could be not only practical, but interesting as well.\n\n-Christopher
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Surprising so many answers.  If you start in Genis you find that it does not mention others of any account until it comes to man.  It has God calling things into formation.  There must have been a goodly number moving things and mixing things as the heavens and the earth were created.  With earth there was the additional processes of creating plants and animals.\n\n"THEY" were so impressed, they said "Let us create man in our image!"  And so God created man in his likeness.  \n\nSo when God demanded there be light, I am sure the others that looked like him did what they needed to to create light and keep the boss happy.\n\nRead Genis-pretty plain writing no need for an expert to explain the basic story, but plenty of room for kids to ask how and why.
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Beauty + Science = Soup??? I'm not quite sure how you came to that but heehee, yeah I like soup. Expecially homemade turkey soup.. mmmm...\n\nOh your question.. umm. How about introducing Fractals? They're very scientific, present in nature everywhere and they're very pretty too.\n\nYou could print out some examples from here http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/WHY/\nand bring in some real life examples of fractals in nature, like a fern branch.\n\nI'm sure you'd get a high mark for this.
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I've done research on all three.  This sounds interesting but the details of the project are slightly vague.  What aspect are you covering precisely?  Demonology, Speaking of Tongues, Existence of God, diverse religions- there are so many topics.\nI can help you if you need especially since I'm not working right now because of my pregnancy- it would certainly give me something to do.  I'm definitely creative!\nE-mail me with more details since giving an answer here is \npretty limited.
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Ok a haiku is exactly what you explained. So, you can write one yourself for homework, or here is a famous one \nA giant firefly:\nthat way, this way, that way, this -\nand it passes by.\nIssa. (1762-1826).\nPlease DO NOT PLAGARIZE
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Too bad I won't be able to do your homework for you. Goodluck in your research. Try this website and start reading, http://www.romanceeverafter.com/greek_mythology.htm. Goodluck!