Every Friday we’ll highlight our pick for 'Discussion of the Week'. This week, we’ve chosen Ideas and resources for teaching evolution because of the interesting mix between what the research says about teaching evolution and practical activities and ideas.
The more high tech activities that were suggested include a virtual simulation Evolution 10,000 which lets students track the evolution of a fictional population over 10,000 years, and an online natural selection game based on peppered moths, which is great for adding in a competitive element to the lesson.
However, sometimes low-cost, hands-on activities can the best way to make the abstract easier to grasp Suggestions included modelling the effect of random genetic drift on natural selection using beads and dice (more suitable for 16-19), using tricolour pasta out on the school field, and the good old Clippy Island investigation for modelling natural selection.
Meanwhile, @Paulina Guerrero Gutiérrez kindly shared Eight Top Tips for Teaching Evolution based on her PhD thesis on the subject (not easy to condense so much research into a set of very useable bullet points!), and the BEST resources, looking at the research on misconceptions about evolution, were also highlighted.
@Mary Howell even managed to include the word ‘cryptozoologist’ whilst sharing an activity about mimicry using Revels chocolate - impressive!
You can read the discussion in full here: Ideas and resources for teaching evolution
Thank you to @Chris Carr @Claire Ruthven @Mandy Quinton @Paulina Guerrero Gutiérrez @Mary Howell and @Matthew King for all the ideas shared.