Category Archives: Education

The accurate language challenge, part II.

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Once again, the challenge is to translate sloppy shorthand into technically accurate explanations for what is going on…

As microbes evolve, they adapt to their environment. If something stops them from growing and spreading—such as an antimicrobial—they evolve new mechanisms to resist the antimicrobials by changing their genetic structure. Changing the genetic structure ensures that the offspring of the resistant microbes are also resistant.

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/antimicrobialResistance/Understanding/history.htm

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The accurate language challenge, part I.

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Here is a little exercise I use in my evolution class. I post a segment of a news story that describes an evolutionary process in sloppy terms and then ask the students to translate it into language that accurately describes what is going on.

Here’s one from today’s Discovery News.

Lizards Evolved Quickly to Avoid Death by Ants

It takes some effort for fire ants to get under the hard scales of an unsuspecting lizard. When the insects finally penetrate the reptile’s fleshy core, the attackers inject a toxin that paralyzes their victim. Then, they tear the lizard to pieces, which they carry back to their nest.

…

It’s an unpleasant way to die, and one that at least one species of lizard is rapidly evolving to avoid. In just 70 years, according to a new study, eastern fence lizards in parts of the United States have developed longer hind limbs and new behaviors that help them escape the clutches of the venomous ants.

Have at it!

(Hint: Start your answer with “Within a population of lizards…”)

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Don’t call it Darwinism

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For those of you who still are not reading Evolution: Education and Outreach, here’s another reason to check it out.

Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education have a nice article coming out in the next issue entitled “Don’t call it Darwinism“. It is already free to access in preprint.

While you’re at it, you can have a look at the special issue on eye evolution, and my first contribution to a series entitled “Evolutionary Concepts” on artificial selection.

All about eye evolution.

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The most recent issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach is now available free online. This is a special issue devoted to the evolution of eyes. Enjoy.

Evolution: Education and Outreach
Volume 1 Issue 4
The evolution of eyes
Edited by T. Ryan Gregory

Editorial

351. Editorial by Gregory Eldredge and Niles Eldredge (PDF)

352-354. Introduction by T. Ryan Gregory (PDF)

355-357. Casting an Eye on Complexity by Niles Eldredge (PDF)

Original science / evolution reviews

358-389. The Evolution of Complex Organs by T. Ryan Gregory (PDF)
(Blog: Genomicron)

390-402. Opening the “Black Box”: The Genetic and Biochemical Basis of Eye Evolution by Todd H. Oakley and M. Sabrina Pankey (PDF)
(Blog: Evolutionary Novelties)

403-414. A Genetic Perspective on Eye Evolution: Gene Sharing, Convergence and Parallelism by Joram Piatigorsky (PDF)

415-426. The Origin of the Vertebrate Eye by Trevor D. Lamb, Edward N. Pugh, Jr., and Shaun P. Collin (PDF)

427-438. Early Evolution of the Vertebrate Eye—Fossil Evidence by Gavin C. Young (PDF)

439-447. Charting Evolution’s Trajectory: Using Molluscan Eye Diversity to Understand Parallel and Convergent Evolution by Jeanne M. Serb and Douglas J. Eernisse (PDF)

448-462. Evolution of Insect Eyes: Tales of Ancient Heritage, Deconstruction, Reconstruction, Remodeling, and Recycling by Elke Buschbeck and Markus Friedrich (PDF)

463-475. Exceptional Variation on a Common Theme: The Evolution of Crustacean Compound Eyes by Thomas W. Cronin and Megan L. Porter (PDF)

476-486. The Causes and Consequences of Color Vision by Ellen J. Gerl and Molly R. Morris (PDF)

487-492. The Evolution of Extraordinary Eyes: The Cases of Flatfishes and Stalk-eyed Flies by Carl Zimmer (PDF)
(Blog: The Loom)

493-497. Suboptimal Optics: Vision Problems as Scars of Evolutionary History by Steven Novella (PDF)
(Blog: NeuroLogica)

Curriculum articles

498-504. Bringing Homologies Into Focus by Anastasia Thanukos (PDF)
(Website: Understanding Evolution)

505-508. Misconceptions About the Evolution of Complexity by Andrew J. Petto and Louise S. Mead (PDF)
(Website: NCSE)

509-516. Losing Sight of Regressive Evolution by Monika Espinasa and Luis Espinasa (PDF)

Book reviews

548-551. Jay Hosler, An Evolutionary Novelty: Optical Allusions by Todd H. Oakley (PDF)

Evolution vs. creationism in the classroom: evolving student attitudes.

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The August 2008 issue of Integrative and Comparative Biology has the following papers in a special section entitled Evolution vs. creationism in the classroom: evolving student attitudes.

Teaching evolution: challenging religious preconceptions
by Eric C. Lovely and Linda C. Kondrick

Trickle-down evolution: an approach to getting major evolutionary adaptive changes into textbooks and curricula
by Kevin Padian

Still creationism after all these years: understanding and counteracting intelligent design
by Barbara Forrest

Thomism and science education: history informs a modern debate
by Linda C. Kondrick

Teaching evolution (and all of biology) more effectively: strategies for engagement, critical reasoning, and confronting misconceptions
by Craig E. Nelson

Curricular reform and inquiry teaching in biology: where are our efforts most fruitfully invested?
by Brianna E. Timmerman, Denise C. Strickland, and Susan M. Cartsensen

Species-Scape: very cool, but…

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Larry Moran directs us to have a look at Species-Scape at the Cornell website. It’s great.

But…

1. It has one group of “prokaryotes”, Kingdom Monera, which is pretty old school. (Same goes for “Protists“). You don’t like dividing the Archaea and Bacteria? Ok, but how about a note that many people now consider this one of the deepest divisions of life? If they can mention something as esoteric to most readers as the phylogenetic species concept, surely they could include a brief line about, you know, phylogenetic groupings at the highest level.

2. And I quote:

This is a taxonomic view of life on earth — based on systematic classifications — which challenges our typical “mammal-centric” understanding of the world around us. Today there is increasing awareness of the enormous diversity of life on earth, but few people probably appreciate the fact that the Species-Scape is completely dominated by multilegged (more than 4 legs) and legless animals, fungi and microbes. Mammals, with a mere 4,000 species, are dwarfed by “lower” animals.

Do we really have to use a misconception to correct a misconception?

New Educational Model For A New Century

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Over at the home of Genomicron 2.0 (ScientificBlogging.com), physicist, education expert, and Nobel laureate Carl Wieman has an important post about 21st century post-secondary science education.

Optimizing The University – Why We Need a New Educational Model For A New Century

There are currently great needs and great opportunities for improvement in post-secondary science education. As world education improves, we need to provide more students with complex understanding and problem solving skills in technical subjects to allow them to be responsible and successful citizens in modern society.

Emerging research indicates that our colleges and universities are not achieving this. However, there are great opportunities to improve this situation using advances in the understanding of how people learn science and advances in educational technology.

Evolutionary trees for Darwin Day.

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In time for Darwin Day, my article on “Understanding evolutionary trees” in the forthcoming issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach is now freely available as a preprint online.

Here is the article abstract:

Charles Darwin sketched his first evolutionary tree in 1837, and trees have remained a central metaphor in evolutionary biology up to the present. Today, phylogenetics—the science of constructing and evaluating hypotheses about historical patterns of descent in the form of evolutionary trees—has become pervasive within and increasingly outside evolutionary biology. Fostering skills in “tree thinking” is therefore a critical component of biological education. Conversely, misconceptions about evolutionary trees can be very detrimental to one’s understanding of the patterns and processes that have occurred in the history of life. This paper provides a basic introduction to evolutionary trees, including some guidelines for how and how not to read them. Ten of the most common misconceptions about evolutionary trees and their implications for understanding evolution are addressed.

Gregory, TR. 2008. Understanding evolutionary trees. Evolution: Education and Outreach 1: in press.

I have also started a series on the topic at DNA and Diversity.

My earlier piece “Evolution as fact, theory, and path” is also free to access.