Performing Evolution: Role-Play Simulations

Abstract

By simulating evolution through performance, students become physically, as well as mentally, engaged in thinking about evolutionary concepts. This instructional strategy redirects tension around the subject toward metacognitive reflection. Non-verbal performances like those presented here also avoid the pitfalls of relying on difficult-to-use language. This paper describes a teachable unit including the learning goals and outcomes as well as rubrics to aid assessment. Through two performance-based activities, the unit introduces the fundamental evolutionary concepts that evolution lacks forethought and that natural selection is a sorting process. By reflecting on the performances, students learn other sophisticated evolutionary concepts like hitchhiking, the effects of environmental change, and the extinction of traits. They also become aware of the scientific process, articulating hypotheses about the outcome of the simulations, collecting data, and revising their hypotheses. Discussions and homework about the performances reveal how learning progresses, and detailed rubrics help both instructors and students assess conceptual learning. This unit concludes with the opportunity for students to transfer what they have learned to new concepts: they design new performances to simulate other mechanisms of evolution, such as genetic drift, mutation, and migration.

Making evolution stick: using sticky notes to teach the mechanisms of evolutionary change

“…Students themselves become each mechanism, acting out its effects on their population of sticky notes. Their physical participation in this activity helps to diffuse some of the tension that commonly accompanies learning about evolution ( Price 2011 ). In developing this activity, we have worked with two very different types of students: first-year undergraduates at a historically black university and adult Buddhist monks.…”

“…We originally implemented this activity in this manner and students were enthusiastic observers-calling out answers, asking questions, and displaying their preferences towards particular sticky note phenotypes. However, based on our experience and that of others, this activity would be most effective when performed by small groups -students are more engaged if they are physically involved in the movement of the sticky notes (Price 2011;Springer et al 1999). Small group work also allows students to have fun with the activity, deciding which natural disaster will occur and arguing over which colors should be favored by natural selection (although in our whole-class discussions, there was still vigorous debate about the fates of particular sticky notes).…”

Alta Eficácia De Material Didático Para O Ensino De Evolução Por Seleção Natural

“…Sendo a SN difícil de observar diretamente no contexto de uma aula, muitos educadores têm desenvolvido estratégias alternativas que simulam esse processo (Reis et al, 2013;Pope, Rounds & Clarke-Midura, 2017). Nessas simulações que incluem tanto ações em que os estudantes manipulam objetos ou seus próprios corpos para representar uma população, eles podem entender que não são os indivíduos que mudam, mas a sobrevivência e a reprodução diferencial combinada com a herdabilidade que mudam a composição da próxima geração, e que a SN atua sobre variações préexistentes ao invés de induzi-las (Fifield & Fall, 1992;Siegel et al, 2005;Price, 2010;Eterovic & Santos, 2013;Reis et al, 2013;Hildebrand, Govedich & Bain, 2014). A eficácia de muitas dessas simulações, entretanto, é raramente testada (Vargens & El-Hani, 2011;Pope, Rounds & Clarke-Midura, 2017).…”