Jumping Into Natural Selection

Redesign of a Life Cycle Figure Improves Student Conceptions of Ecology and Evolution

“…Working with grades 1-3 (ages 6-8), Sisk-Hilton et al [33] developed a "life spiral" diagraming activity. Each loop of the spiral indicates one generation.…”

“…The pilot survey included 16 multiple-choice and open-ended questions based on our research questions and published records of common ecological and evolutionary misconceptions [31][32][33]. We recruited a convenience sample of 53 students from the university's Student Center.…”

“…Further research should be conducted to determine if displaying this loss of organisms before reproductive maturity serves as a logic-based bridge toward evolutionary understanding. Sisk-Hilton's life spiral activity, used with young children who are often considered too young to understand the complexity of survival advantage in evolution, were able to discuss the most likely survivors in various environmental conditions [33]. We recommend qualitative studies to investigate the thought processes that may link numbers of offspring with evolutionary thinking.…”

“…Since our findings indicate that there is an unexpected additive effect between the two variables (number of offspring and figure layout), the inclusion of a Linear-Single figure could expound on this result. We also did not test a version of Sisk-Hilton's life spiral design [33] since it displays multiple generations. Comparing the life spiral with several generations of the linear layout would test whether one format is easier to interpret, based on the familiarity or simplicity of the image, or whether one or both formats improve evolutionary thinking compared with images displaying a single generation.…”