Evolution Site - Teaching About Evolution
Despite the best efforts of biology educators, misconceptions about evolution persist. People who have absorbed popular science myths often assume that biologists claim they do not believe in evolution.
This rich website - companion to the PBS series It provides teachers with materials that support evolution education and help avoid the kinds of misconceptions that undermine it. It's arranged in a nested "bread crumb" format for ease of navigation and orientation.
Definitions
Evolution is a complicated and difficult subject matter to teach effectively. It is often misunderstood by non-scientists and even scientists use a definition that confuses the issue. This is especially relevant when discussing the nature of the words themselves.
It is crucial to define the terms that are used in evolutionary biology. The website for the PBS show, Understanding Evolution, does this in a simple and efficient manner. It is a companion for the 2001 series, and it is also a resource on its own. The information is presented in a structured manner that makes it easier to navigate and comprehend.
The site defines terms such as common ancestor, the gradual process and adaptation. These terms help frame the nature of evolution and its relation to other scientific concepts. The site provides an overview of the ways in which evolution has been tested. This information can be used to dispel the myths that have been propagated by the creationists.
You can also access a glossary that contains terms that are used in evolutionary biology. These terms include:
Adaptation: The tendency for heritable traits to become better adaptable to a specific environment. This is the result of natural selection, which happens when organisms with more adaptable characteristics are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less adapted characteristics.
Common ancestor: The latest common ancestor of two or more species. The common ancestor can be identified by studying the DNA of those species.
Deoxyribonucleic acid: A large biological molecule that contains the information required for cell replication. The information is stored in nucleotide sequences, which are strung into long chains known as chromosomes. Mutations are responsible for the creation of new genetic information inside cells.
Coevolution is the relationship between two species in which the evolution of one species are influenced by evolutionary changes of the other. Coevolution can be seen in the interactions between predator and prey, or parasites and hosts.
Origins
Species (groups that can interbreed), evolve through a series natural changes in their offspring's traits. These changes can be caused by various factors, including natural selection, gene drift and mixing of the gene pool. The development of new species can take thousands of years. Environmental conditions, such as changes in the climate or competition for food resources and habitat can slow or speed up the process.
The Evolution site traces the emergence of a number of different species of plants and animals over time, focusing on the major shifts that occurred throughout the evolution of each group's history. It also focuses on human evolution as a subject of particular importance to students.
When Darwin wrote the Origin, only a handful of antediluvian human fossils had been discovered. Among them was the famous skullcap and the associated bones discovered in 1856 at the Little Feldhofer Grotto in Germany which is now believed to be an early Homo neanderthalensis. While the skullcap wasn't published until 1858, a year before the first edition of the Origin was published, it is extremely unlikely that Darwin had seen or heard of it.
The site is mostly a biology site however it also includes many details on paleontology and geology. The most impressive features of the Web site are a series of timelines which show the way in which climatic and geological conditions changed over time, as well as a map of the distribution of a few fossil groups that are featured on the site.
Although the site is a companion piece to a PBS television show, it also stands on its own as a great resource for teachers and students. The site is extremely well-organized and offers clear links between the introductory information in Understanding Evolution (developed with support from the National Science Foundation) and the more sophisticated elements of the museum Web site. These hyperlinks make it easy to transition from the cartoon style of Understanding Evolution pages into the more sophisticated realms of research science. In particular there are hyperlinks to John Endler's research with Guppies that demonstrate the importance of ecology in evolutionary theory.
Diversity
The evolution of life has resulted in many species of animals, plants and insects. Paleobiology is the study of these creatures within their geological context offers many advantages over the current observational or experimental methods for exploring evolutionary phenomena. Paleobiology can examine not only the process and events that occur frequently or over time, but also the relative abundance and distribution of different species of animals across the geological time.
The site is divided up into several routes that can be taken to study the subject of evolution. One of the paths, "Evolution 101," guides the user through the evolution of nature and the evidence of evolution. The path also reveals the most common misconceptions about evolution, as well as the history of evolutionary thought.
Each of the main sections of the Evolution website is equally well-developed, and includes materials that support a variety curriculum levels and teaching styles. In addition to the standard textual content, the site also has an array of interactive and multimedia resources including videos, animations and virtual laboratories. read review is presented in a nested bread crumb-like fashion that helps with navigation and orientation on the Web site.
The page "Coral Reef Connections" For instance, it provides a comprehensive overview of the relationships between corals and their interactions with other organisms and then is enlarged to show a single clam, which is able to communicate with its neighbors and react to changes in conditions of the water that occur at the reef level. This page, along with the other multidisciplinary, multimedia, and interactive pages on the website, provide an excellent introduction to the broad spectrum of topics in evolutionary biology. The material also provides an overview of the importance of natural selection and the concept of phylogenetic analysis which is a crucial tool in understanding evolutionary changes.
Evolutionary Theory
For biology students the concept of evolution is a major thread that weaves together all the branches of the field. A wide selection of resources helps teachers teach evolution across all disciplines of life sciences.
One resource, a companion to the PBS television series Understanding Evolution, is an outstanding example of a Web site that offers both the depth and breadth of its educational resources. The site features a wide range of interactive learning modules. It also has an "bread crumb structure" that allows students to move away from the cartoon-like style used in Understanding Evolution and onto elements of this vast website that are closely linked to the realms of research science. For instance an animation that introduces the idea of genetic inheritance connects to a page that focuses on John Endler's artificial selection experiments with guppies from the native ponds of Trinidad.
The Evolution Library on this website contains a large multimedia library of materials that deal with evolution. The content is organized in curriculum-based pathways that correspond to the learning goals set forth in the biology standards. It contains seven videos designed specifically for use in classrooms, and can be streamed at no cost or purchased on DVD.
A number of important questions remain at the core of evolutionary biology, including the factors that trigger evolution and how fast it occurs. This is especially true for human evolution, where it has been difficult to reconcile that the physical characteristics of humans evolved from apes, and the religious beliefs that hold that humanity is unique among living things and holds a a special place in creation, with a soul.
There are a myriad of other ways evolution can occur, with natural selection as the most well-known theory. Scientists also study other types such as genetic drift, and sexual selection.
While many fields of scientific inquiry conflict with literal interpretations of the Bible Evolutionary biology has been the subject of particularly intense controversy and resistance from religious fundamentalists. While certain religions have been able to reconcile their beliefs with the theories of evolution, others have not.