Nate Fairchild, is a dynamic middle school science teacher in Redding CA. He has a website on which he details his approach to teaching a very effective comprehensive introductory unit on evolution (as well as incorporating the concept throughout his course) in a community with many anti-evolution families. He sent me this comment recently:
"Ultimately, it's all about learning and replacing dogma with logical thought. I have been very happy with this approach, and since it approaches the kids from left field, I do not get any (ANY!) complaints from parents, though I am sure one day I will. I feel very strongly that in a community like mine I might as well not teach evolution if I stood up and said, "OK, this is a unit on evolution and you can believe what you want." Ugh." I would add that we have an obligation as life science teachers to help students recognize inaccurate claims and concepts about science and scientific topics, and to do all we can to replace them with the most accurate and current scientific information. We can do this without compromising basic religious beliefs, and certainly with respect and sensitivity for students with those beliefs. We must be as effective in this as we can.

Here is his Evolution Unit ("Genetics in the Environment") page. When you get there, click the "Evolution Philosophy" link (top of page) to see Nate's rationale and overview of his approach. Then return to his Evolution Unit page. Note that he does not use the term "evolution" until the 6th day: "Key Day." Scroll to the top and click on "Key Day" there to see details of how he actually introduces the term. He includes in his unit some of the lessons we have on the ENSI site, but you can see how he has orchestrated them in his course.

Natural Selection is presented as one evolutionary mechanism for evolution. Other mechanisms are not covered here. You might want to list or mention one or two of the other mechanisms, plus the process of speciation, details of which should be covered in their high school biology. Otherwise, students may assume (incorrectly) that natural selection and evolution are the same.

A simple pre-test about evolution would reveal that most of our students tend to have many misconceptions about the subject. In fact, increasing numbers of children are coming to us thinking that evolution is atheistic, or the work of the Devil, neither of which is true. Many are deeply fearful of even learning about evolution, but if you ask them to define or explain evolution, you discover many distortions; they are actively resisting knowledge about something that is really not evolution. This closes doors to the future of those students, so they will not learn about how science works, what evolution really is, and that it is an excellent example of great science. Lacking this understanding reduces their chances for college success, especially for careers in medicine, health, agriculture and environmental science. In addition, without accurate understanding of evolution and the nature of science, this can also impact careers in politics, business, journalism, education, and many other fields that interface with science. In our competitive global economy, the survival of our nation's well-being is also at stake. At the very least, we should do all we can to correct the misinformation. Nate's approach offers an effective way to do that. By teaching the essential elements of evolution without initially calling it that, using engaging and interactive strategies, and seeing that the process works, they come to understand it, so that they will be alerted to distortions about this important topic. Misconceptions are extremely hard to change, but this strategy seems to work well.
Try it in your classroom.

Here is Nate's current curriculum sequence, to see the context and timing for his Natural Selection unit:
August - Nature of Science
September - Cells
October-November - Genetics (an introduction to basic Mendelian genetics)
December - Review
January - Review, Natural Selection (see Nate's sequence and content for this unit on his site)
February - Natural Selection, Human Body
March - Human Body
April - Light
May - Insects
June - Competitions