A Newsletter for the Neighbors of the University of California, Berkeley |
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New evolution website helps teachers
By Robert Sanders The debut this spring of a new UC Berkeley website devoted to evolution provides a much-needed resource for teachers, as schools across the nation are being challenged to kick evolution out of the classroom or pair it with instruction in non-scientific alternatives, such as “intelligent design.” The “Understanding Evolution” website — funded by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and created jointly by UC Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education — went online in early February. It debuted just as Georgia’s Superintendent of Education advocated eliminating the evolution “buzzword” from the state science curriculum and the Ohio state Board of Education voted to include some aspects of intelligent design in lesson plans about evolution. For teachers caught up in the imbroglio, or those who just want to refresh their understanding of evotionary theory or find an engaging lesson plan for their students, the website is the place to go. Judy Scotchmoor, director of education and public programs at the Museum of Paleontology and UC Berkeley integrative biology professors David Lindberg and Roy Caldwell worked closely with six teachers and numerous graduate students to assemble a site that would be “a one-stop shop” for teachers, and eventually students and the general public, on the theory of evolution. The site is replete with practical examples of how evolution impacts our daily lives. It includes lesson plans about bunny breeding, the problem of antibiotic resistance in disease organisms, and the conservation and breeding of endangered species. “ To understand why we have to get a yearly flu shot, or why we need to manage rainbow trout and steelhead populations together, you have to understand evolution,” Lindberg says. He notes that the site avoids a defensive or confrontational attitude toward those who do not accept evolution. Suggestions on dealing with religious or other objections are offered in a respectful way in a section called “Overcoming Roadblocks.” Nevertheless, the site is clear that “There are no alternative scientific theories to account for the observations explained by evolutionary theory.” The heart of the site is Evolution 101, which can serve as a primer to evolutionary theory or an intensive course in the nitty gritty details of speciation, micro- and macroevolution, and ongoing research into how evolution happens. “ This is what every science teacher should know about evolution,” Scotchmoor says. “There are textbooks that cover the process, but we put it all in there, including discussions about the nature of science and the history of evolutionary thought, which has built on itself from the 1700s to today.” One of the knottiest issues the site’s creators dealt with was how to define evolution. Even Lindberg and Caldwell, the scientists on the development team, initially couldn’t agree on a definition. After many brainstorming sessions, they finally agreed on a concise and compact definition: descent with modification, both in the short run, as gene frequency changes from generation to generation (microevolution), and over many generations, leading to new species (macroevolution). This definition distinguishes evolution from mere “changes with time” — a phrase that Georgia wanted to substitute for evolution — and emphasizes a central theme of the theory of evolution, that we all share common ancestors, Scotchmoor says. The site offers the ability to search for lessons aimed at various grades. A second grade teacher, for example, can find 18 lessons that teach some aspect of evolution, from simple exercises that get kids to use their senses to explore the natural world to elementary displays of the concept of geologic time and extinction. “ This site is a long-term investment,” Lindberg says. “We believe firmly that the way to ensure that evolution is taught in schools is to give teachers the resources, information and activities that they need to do a good job teaching evolution. This is a proactive stance, not reactive.”
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To visit the site go to http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ |
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