I had been teaching high school about 10 years when a new biology teacher was hired to teach in the room connected to mine.
She was younger and energetic, but I sensed that she didn’t have the best biology background from our frequent discussions. She confirmed this feeling for me one day when she said she did not want to teach evolution to her students. She said it was too controversial and that she wasn’t sure about it herself. I told her as gently as possible that our curriculum was determined by the state and that she really didn’t have a choice. I also told her it was important for her students to learn about it. I was never sure if she really taught it. As it turned out, she was on a fast track to get out of the classroom and into administration.
These days thanks to implementation of state and national standards, and science teachers who learned about evolution when they were students, this is less of an occurrence.
What made me decide to write this blog is that there are always individuals who want to question the curriculum. Biology teachers should understand why they are teaching evolution and why it is so important for their students so they can speak authoritatively about this topic.
Theodosius Dobzhansky was a was a prominent Ukrainian geneticist and evolutionary biologist.
He is well known for shaping modern synthesis theory which connected the ideas of Gregor Mendel (genetics) and Charles Darwin (evolution). One of his famous quotes is “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
How does evolutionary biology help our students understand the world they live in?
Evolution unifies the fields of biology. Like all tried and true scientific theories it helps explain why certain natural phenomena occur. Students can begin to see the connectivity of the biological world. This can help them understand the implications of climate change, the importance of sustainability, and the implications for the health of humans and other species. Understanding evolution helps us solve biological problems that impact our lives. (evolution.berkley.edu.)
As always, my motto is “Promoting Scientific Literacy,” and I strongly believe evolution is one of the most important topics in science. The graphic below lists some of the teaching resources I have created for TPT. (Clicking on the graphic will take you to the store where the resources are listed.)
Evolution Quotes:
“Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts.” -Francis Collins; The Language of God, 2006
“Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.” -Richard Dawkins
"Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science - in all of biology." - Bill Nye
“Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.”
-Theodosius Dobzhansky
"Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology." - Theodosius Dobzhansky
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei
Further Reading:
Why Teach Evolution?
Teaching evolution in U.S. public schools: a continuing challenge:
The Relevance of Evolution:
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