Teaching ‘Evolution readiness’ to fourth graders

Abstract

We describe a National Science Foundation-funded project called 'Evolution Readiness' that used computer-based interactive models as well as hands-on activities to help fourth grade students learn Darwin's model of natural selection as the process primarily responsible for evolution. The inclusion of 'readiness' in the title is important to keep in mind. A full understanding of evolution would require the acquisition of a detailed model of how information is encoded in DNA, interpreted in cells, and manifested in organisms and species. To understand the evidence presented by the fossil record and its implications for evolutionary theory would require an appreciation of the immensity of geologic time as well as a substantive introduction to geology and paleontology. These topics are not easily accessible to ten-year-olds, but we have found that children can successfully perform virtual experiments that explore the connection between the interdependence of species and their remarkable adaptations and recognize the latter as arising gradually from small variations that affect reproductive success. Working in three school districts, located in Texas, Missouri, and Massachusetts, we implemented a curriculum unit covering 16 class periods. In each state the elementary science standards include all the concepts we cover, but traditional curricula do not attempt to integrate these concepts or to use them to explain observations of the natural world. We compared students who had used our materials to a baseline cohort taught by the same teachers but exposed only to the traditional curriculum. The treatment students outscored the baseline students, demonstrating the feasibility of teaching young students the fundamental concepts behind the theory of evolution and thus preparing them to deepen their understanding when they next encounter the topic.

Young children's near and far transfer of the basic theory of natural selection: An analogical storybook intervention

“…The storybook format was selected for numerous reasons (see Emmons et al, ; Kelemen et al, , for detailed explanation). One notable reason is that approaches based in narrative text have previously proven successful in teaching young children various biological facts, including facts and individual concepts pertinent to understanding evolutionary processes (e.g., Brown & Kane, ; Brown, Kane, and Long, ; Browning & Hohenstein, ; Ganea, Ma, & DeLoache, ; Legare, Lane, & Evans, ; Shtulman et al, ; see Dickes & Sengupta, ; Horwitz, McIntyre, Lord, O'dwyer, & Staudt, , for simulation approaches containing some narrative elements). With the goal of using narrative to more comprehensively teach selectionist theory rather than a set of component facts, Kelemen et al () recently explored whether a picture storybook narrative could lead children to self‐generate a detailed, causally coherent mechanistic explanation of adaptation by natural selection absent any overt misconceptions.…”

The dandelion evolution outreach program: learning through inquiry-based community engagement

“…An evolution readiness program developed for fourth graders in Massachusetts, Missouri, and Texas, U.S.A. tracked the implementation and success in addition to the challenges faced over three years (Horwitz et al 2013). The most significant challenge was that of maintaining the sustainability of the program because of a changeover of personnel in the schools, at both the administrative and the teaching levels.…”

“…Branch and Scott 2007;Robbins and Roy 2007;Cole 2006;Scharmann 2005;Carter and Wiles 2014;Horwitz et al 2013), or even to increase 'acceptance of evolution' at the college level (i.e. Abraham et al 2012) .…”

EvoSketch: Simple simulations for learning random and probabilistic processes in evolution, and effects of instructional support on learners’ conceptual knowledge

“…For evolution education, there are few computer simulations available for free such as Evolve (Price and Vaughn 2010), Avida-ED (Pennock 2007(Pennock , 2018, or evolution readiness activities (Concord Consortium 2018). The conducted research studies indicated positive learning gains after using these simulations (Horwitz et al 2013;Soderberg and Price 2003;Speth et al 2009). Nevertheless, they were designed to focus on evolutionary (key) concepts without focusing on particular underlying threshold concepts such as randomness and probability.…”

“…Nevertheless, they were designed to focus on evolutionary (key) concepts without focusing on particular underlying threshold concepts such as randomness and probability. For instance, the activities of evolution readiness focus on the process of (natural) selection, variation within species (without referring to the origin of variation), and inheritance of various traits (Horwitz et al 2013). This also counts for evolve, which is designed to focus on the effects of selection, genetic drift, and migration of a population over time without modeling mutations or their random nature (Soderberg and Price 2003).…”