Considering Adaptation and the “Function” of Traits in the Classroom, Using Wiki Tools

Abstract

The conceptual understanding of the process of adaptation (whereby a population becomes better suited to its environment over evolutionary time) is acknowledged to be a difficult one. Many studies have shown that there is an inherent misunderstanding of the term, which is often related to the learner adopting the common rather than biological usage of the term in the learner's language. However, understanding adaptation is essential to understanding evolution, and learners need to be encouraged to understand how to relate hypotheses of the 'function' of a trait shown by an individual with the environment in which the individual lives. Here, I describe a practical which encourages a class of learners to create their own organisms, through a series of steps by which they create functional explanations of morphology and behaviour. Using a branching process whereby groups of students are split into smaller and smaller subgroups, an artificial phylogeny is created. A wiki system is then used to emphasise how individual species and groups of species are related. The relationship of this practical to problems of tree-thinking is discussed. KEYWORDS

Effects of evolutionary history on adaptation in bean beetles, a model system for inquiry-based laboratories

“…Many of the recent advances in the development of laboratory activities in evolutionary biology have focused on using computer simulations or virtual laboratories to address common student misconceptions related to evolution and natural selection (Abraham et al 2009;Rands 2010;Speth et al 2009;Toth et al 2009). For example, in the Darwinian Snails exercise that is a part of the EvoBeaker collection, students examine the conditions for evolution by natural selection in a virtual world in which European green crabs are feeding on flat periwinkle snails (Abraham et al 2009).…”