Modeling with Nonliving Objects to Enhance Understanding of Phylogenetic Tree Construction

Abstract

Understanding how to read and interpret phylogenetic trees is an essential skill for biology students. We tested an alternative approach in which students draw trees showing the evolution of familiar nonliving objects, such as cell phones and vehicles, rather than unfamiliar species. We surveyed students in a two-semester biology sequence for majors to determine whether this approach increased engagement, and we found that they preferred the alternative approach. Another group of students performing the activity with nonliving objects showed that performance on a content assessment was not changed before and after the activity. A final group showed that students who had drawn trees of nonliving objects beforehand were able to draw phylogenetic trees of living species more accurately than classmates who did not draw them previously. Although drawing trees of nonliving objects rather than living species did not affect students’ content-learning outcomes, it did improve their ability to draw phylogenetic trees accurately, and they preferred it. These pieces of evidence suggest that drawing trees showing the evolution of nonliving objects is an engaging and beneficial addition to evolution lesson plans.

Structural and compositional diversity of biosurfactants produced by a novel strain of Sporosarcina luteola ME44 from oil reservoir

“…The tree was constructed using the neighbor‐joining algorithm. Bootstrap percentages (based on 1000 replications) are above 50%, one nucleotide substitution per 100 nt (Lampert & Mook, 2015).…”

Further Effects of Phylogenetic Tree Style on Student Comprehension in an Introductory Biology Course

“…From a motivational perspective, students may not take surveys as seriously as course work that affects their academic standing ( Sundberg, 2002 ). In addition, neither study included construction tasks, which are common instructional activities for phylogenetic trees (e.g., Gendron, 2000 ; Goldsmith, 2003 ; Julius and Schoenfuss, 2006 ; Burks and Boles, 2007 ; Lents et al , 2010 ; Eddy et al , 2013 ; Bokor et al , 2014 ; Lampert and Mook, 2015 ). Finally, both studies were conducted by the same researchers at the same institution, which limits the robustness of the claims due to potential experimenter bias ( Makel and Plucker, 2014 ).…”

Effects of Phylogenetic Tree Style on Student Comprehension in an Introductory Biology Course

“…Beyond reinforcing existing research on student interpretations, we also investigated style effects for phylogenetic tree construction, which is of particular interest to teachers. Construction tasks, in which students build phylogenetic trees from various forms of data, are common instructional activities for phylogenetic trees (e.g., Singer et al, 2001;Goldsmith, 2003;Julius & Schoenfuss, 2006;Burks & Boles, 2007;Lents et al, 2010;Eddy et al, 2013;Bokor et al, 2014;Lampert & Mook, 2015). Although several studies examined how accurately students construct phylogenetic trees from data (Meir et al, 2007;Halverson, 2011;Hobbs et al, 2013;Young et al, 2013), only one investigation accounted for style (Dees & Momsen, 2016).…”