Evolution Education: Seeing the Forest for the Trees and Focusing Our Efforts on the Teaching of Evolution

Abstract

Evolution is the underlying framework upon which all biology is based; however, when it comes to learning evolutionary concepts, many students encounter obstacles. There are many reasons as to why these obstacles occur. These reasons deal with evolution being treated as a discrete topic among many within a biology curriculum, misunderstanding the nature of science, and personal difficulties with understanding due to evolution's seemingly abstract nature. In this article, we propose a different way of thinking about and teaching evolution in grades K-12, and it surrounds four core areas essential to the understanding of evolution: variation, selection, inheritance, and deep time. Possibilities for how these areas can affect learning are described and implications for assessment are also discussed.Keywords Evolution education . Evolution teaching approaches . Learning progressions . Understanding evolution . Evolutionary beliefs . Evolution curricular approaches When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of natural selection in the 1800s, this profoundly changed the social and scientific landscape of the time. Few in society of the time could accept this paradigm shift, but the Darwinian shift had hallmarks of the scientific process, where competing explanations of the natural world were, and still, looked at through open-mindedness and a critical lens. A similar conflict occurred in geology over Wegener's theory of continental drift. Once mapping of the ocean floor revealed the mid-oceanic ridges and trenches that Wegener's theory required, the geology community quickly adopted the theory, which now forms the basis for understanding much of geology. Evolution holds a similar place in biology. The integration of genetics with evolution that started in the 1930s (Haldane 1932) provided the "missing link" in biology that mid-oceanic ridges had provided to geology. As a result, evolution is the overarching theory that provides the stable bedrock on which biological research and understanding are based. While new details and discoveries in evolution continue to emerge, evolution is the basis for our understanding of biology. Yet despite this centrality, evolution continues to be poorly understood by students, educators, and the public.

Accepting, understanding, teaching, and learning (human) evolution: Obstacles and opportunities

“…Collectively, these and other studies (e.g., Lehrer and Schauble, ) suggest that a greater acceptance of evolution by adults at large might be facilitated by featuring evolution education in elementary (Beardsley et al, ; Kelemen, ; Legare et al, ) and middle school curricula (Beardsley, ; Whittier and Robinson, ) and provide promising evidence that early instruction in evolution and the nature of science is a fruitful way to compensate for the anti‐evolution messages children hear from so many other sources noted earlier (Hermann, ). Indeed, given the fact that children exhibit misconceptions about evolution‐related concepts at such a young age that are likely to become deeply entrenched if left largely unchallenged for a long period of developmental time (Kelemen, ), Nadelson et al () proposed that the critical question now is not whether science should be taught to early elementary students, but instead how it should be taught and what concepts it should cover, since evolution is a complex topic that necessitates long‐term exposure for full comprehension (see also McVaugh et al, who propose four core concepts to focus on echoed by other evolution educators: variation, selection, inheritance, and deep time). To this end, Evans et al () outlined a developmental learning progression related to evolution.…”

Decentralized thinking and understanding of evolution in K-12 evolution education

“…Previous work (Bishop and Anderson, 1990;Anderson et al 2002;McVaugh et al 2011;Lehrer and Schauble 2012), proposed four core areas of critical importance for understanding the concept of evolution-variation, selection, inheritance, and deep time-all of which present challenges to understanding evolution. The current work proposes adding a fifth component: a decentralized mindset (Smith 2010;Yates and Marek, 2013).…”

“…Previous work (Bishop and Anderson, 1990;Anderson et al 2002;McVaugh et al 2011;Lehrer and Schauble 2012) described the core ideas of variation, selection, inheritance, and deep time as all being essential to integrate within a kindergarten through undergraduate college (K-16) biology curriculum in order to obtain a deeper conceptual understanding of evolution. The current work describes the proposed addition of decentralized thinking to an existing framework (McVaugh et al 2011) and illuminates instances where a lack of understanding of decentralized thinking is apparent in classroom instruction. Evidence is provided for an argument as to why the inclusion of a decentralized mindset is necessary for integration within a cohesive biology curriculum.…”

Why Don’t People Think Evolution Is True? Implications for Teaching, In and Out of the Classroom

“…Students and the general public also hold a wide variety of specific misconceptions about what modern evolutionary biology says (Brumby 1984;Bishop and Anderson 1990;Ferrari and Chi 1998;Antolin and Herbers 2001;Woods and Scharmann 2001;Alters and Nelson 2002;Anderson et al 2002;Isaak 2006;McVaugh et al 2011;Wiles et al 2011). For example, many think that new functional traits appear in organisms when they are needed; that evolution consists of the transformation of an entire species' underlying essence; that it necessarily implies "randomness," "progress," or increasing complexity; or that it is mathematically improbable or violates the second law of thermodynamics.…”

“…For example, many think that new functional traits appear in organisms when they are needed; that evolution consists of the transformation of an entire species' underlying essence; that it necessarily implies "randomness," "progress," or increasing complexity; or that it is mathematically improbable or violates the second law of thermodynamics. Such misunderstandings affect acceptance of evolution because if many people think that they understand evolution, when in fact they do not, they may not only "fail to appreciate how empirical evidence bears on evolutionary claims" (Lombrozo et al 2006) but they can also be misled by critiques of these mistaken views (Cunningham and Wescott 2009;Jakobi 2010;McVaugh et al 2011). That such misconceptions are at least occasionally important barriers to accepting evolution is indicated by studies in which acceptance is increased by "presenting students with a direct comparison of various naïve misconceptions associated with creationism to explanations which are more consistent with scientific evidence" (Alters 2005; see also Alters and Nelson 2002;Ingram and Nelson 2006;Nelson 2007;Verhey 2005;Wilson 2005;Wiles et al 2011).…”