How are all of the species living on Earth today related? How does understanding evolutionary science contribute to our well-being? In this course, participants will learn about evolutionary relationships, population genetics, and natural and artificial selection. Participants will explore evolutionary science and learn how to integrate it into their classrooms.
Teaching Evolution
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Do curso por American Museum of Natural History
Evolução: Um Curso para Educadores
172 classificações
Na lição
Human Evolution
This module explores the rich variety of hominids on the tree of life, along with how and when different human species - including Homo sapiens - migrated around the world. You’ll also learn strategies for teaching evolution in culturally diverse classrooms.
Conheça os instrutores
Joel Cracraft, Ph.D.Chair and Lamont Curator
Division of Vertebrate Zoology
David Randle, Ph.D.Senior Manager of Professional Development
Education Department
Hello, welcome to week four of our course.
this week, I'd like to talk to you about
some of the implications for teaching evolution in the classroom.
I'd like to work on defining some of the terms that scientists
use and, and that may be a source of confusion in teaching kids.
we'll talk about some strategies for looking
at the evidence for evolution with your students.
And I'll refer you to some great resources that
can give you a lot more information and a lot
more strategies than I can give you in this short lecture.
So, one of the things that you want to do when teaching evolutionary
science in the classroom is to invite your students to look at the evidence.
I taught evolutionary science in New York City for many years, and I would always
begin my uni tum, by telling the kids that we were going to focus on the science.
That faith and
science really deal with two different domains.
And a lot of students are coming in with with many different views, many
different faith-based views and a different level
of willingness to accept the evidence for evolution.
your job as a teacher is to really present the evidence, invite
the kids to weigh the evidence, and come up with their own conclusion.
We also know that in order for
kids to understand evolution, they need to understand nature of science.
So they need to understand this idea of how we know what we think we know.
They need to understand how scientists investigate evolutionary science.
They need to understand how scientists arrive at the conclusions that
they do and why the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming.
Earlier in the course we dealt with some
of the misconceptions that students have about the word,
adaptation.
one of the, the things that comes up, in dealing with
evolutionary science is the idea that evolution is just a theory.
So, here are four terms that are, are very important in the realm of science.
And so I invite you to take a look at
these, think about what they mean to you, and then
pause your video and quickly jot down how you think
that a scientist would rank these in terms of the most
important or the biggest ideas to the least important.
So what you come up with?
Some of the research on, on looking at these terms indicates that the
general public ranks scientific facts as the
most important scientific information that we have.
And then, we move from there to laws, theories, which the
general public really thinks of as kind of hunches or kind of glorified hypotheses.
So, you know, when we in, in
colloquial language when we're talking about, you know,
a theory, it's like well, I have a theory why I have a upset stomach.
Or I have a theory why, you know, my baseball team lost last night.
So in, in, in a common language, a theory is basically a hunch.
scientists look at it a little bit differently.
For a scientist, the theory is the big idea.
So, a scientist will look at theory
as the, the big all-encompassing idea that helps explain a lot of what you see.
And in fact the facts down here are important.
But, the facts help you build hypoth, help you generate hypotheses, help you
understand laws, and then eventually, help you put together theories which really
are, are big explanations for scientific events.
So, the definition of the theory that the National
Academy of Scientists came up, up with is, a theory
is a well-substantiated explanation for some aspect of the natural world that can
incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.
And one of the, the great things about a good
theory is, a good theory allows scientists to make predictions.
So one of the things you can do with your students is to use this
aspect of theory, the ability to make predictions to set up your instruction.
So if you present, if then statements to
your students as you work through your evolution curriculum.
So, for instance, you know what would we
predict is life has evolved, what should we see?
Well we should see nested patterns of resemblance linking up all life.
we dealt earlier in the course with, with phylogenetic trees.
So a phylogenetic tree basically is a, a graphic
depiction of these nested patterns that you would see.
So if you look at the top of the tree you might see a group of let's say humans.
So, we have the Neanderthal. We have homo sapiens in that group.
If you go up a little bit farther and look
at the next nest above that, we might see apes.
If you go back a little farther, you'll see all primates.
If you go back farther, you see, eventually see all, all
mammals.
So this is the, sort of this idea of nested
groups within other groups that the theory of evolution predicts.
You'll also see a general pattern of primitive to more advanced life forms.
and, and there are, there are very simple
you know, we would call primitive things alive today.
But what this prediction really is saying is if you
go back in time and look at the fossil history.
Early in the fossil history, you wouldn't see very
advanced or very complex life forms, and we find this.
So, another prediction.
If living things descended with modification from
common ancestors, then we would expect to see
that species that lived in the remote past
are different from species that are alive today.
And, while there are some species that look very much the same,
as species that lived, you know, millions of years ago, for the most
part this is true.
We see very different organisms when you look
in the fossil record, from what we see today.
Another prediction that you can make, is that if evolution occurred,
there should be connecting forms between the major groups of living things.
And this is well documented in the fossil record.
There's, there's wonderful fossils that depict
the transition of reptiles into mammals.
So in thinking about other issues in dealing with your students,
many students are surprised when they found out that their
faith-based views and the scientific view of evolution are not incompatible.
there's some, been some great writing on this.
Ken Miller speaks very eloquently, so I urge you to, to look
him up and, and listen and, and watch some of his interviews.
there's an essay by Ken in our in our course
textbook, so I urge you to take a look at that.
and,
and think about they're, the fact that there
are many scientists who have faith-based views but are
still very accepting of the evidence for evolution,
and, and they use that to guide their science.
Also in your, your book is a, a essay by Brian
Alters where he talks about understanding where your students are coming from.
So, if you, if you can be empathetic toward what
their thinking and what's going to get in the way
of the scientific understanding, they're going to be more accepting
and more respectful of what you're trying to tell them.
And then, stick to the science.
we talked a little bit and some of the
scientists in the supplementary videos and the research section.
We'll talk about what the difference between, faith is, and what science is.
Science is based on empirical evidence, and that's what you need to stick with.
That's how you need to build your argument for, the fact that evolution occurs.
So, a couple places where you can go, the
National Center for Science Education, has some fantastic resources.
that are, that really get at the core of scientific litery, literacy, so they
focus a lot on evolution education, and
they've moved recently into climate change education.
So, they have a lot of factual resources for
teachers and a lot of suggestions for, teaching these issues.
and then the Understanding Evolution site. At
Berkley has a great primer.
They call it Evolution 101, so a great
primer, on evolutionary science that's going to cover and maybe
help supplement a lot of the things that we've
been working with you for the last four weeks.
And they also have a fantastic section on teaching.
So, there's lesson plans, suggestions for teaching,
suggestions for uncovering student misconceptions about evolution.
it's a really wonderful place and, and I think
you'll get a lot out of a visit there.
So, I hope over the last four weeks that we've, we've given you a lot
of information on kind of filling out your
content knowledge, as far as how evolution works.
I hope that we've connected you to some resources and
given you some tips that will help you in your classroom.
please, continue your conversations with your colleagues in the discussions.
we'll pop in as we can and and good luck with teaching evolution.
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