Another important article in this volume addresses the many misconceptions about natural selection. Studies show that even many college biology majors and biology teachers unknowingly carry some of those misconceptions - and are passing them on to their students. The author offers tips into how teachers might be able to help their students discover where their understandings miss the boat, and how to repair them. This article is a must read.

Likewise for articles about the "missing link" myth, and on evolutionary trees & cladograms. For more detailed reviews of all of these articles and the link to the journal, CLICK HERE.

With vacation time rapidly approaching, and with so many programs honoring Charles Darwin this year, the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of Species, give some serious thought to visiting a place that honors him. It could re-energize you and give you some insights and memories to share with your kids. The exchange rate with England is better than it's been for some time (the pound is worth only about 1.5 times the dollar, down from about twice the value last year). And airlines are offering very nice economical packages, too. Click here for specific objectives ­ where to explore, and what to look for, especially in England. If you plan to go, let me know: I'm looking for feedback on a number of questions.

URGENT: Get your January copy of the Scientific American - Evolution Issue
Excellent articles to update your evolution content; Must reading for Biology & Life Science Teachers.
Click here for an annotated list of the articles, with teaching suggestions included.

15 Evolutionary Gems: Recent Evidence of Evolution (from Nature)
Click here for the list of categories and topics, with link to the downloadable Gems.

Evolution Education Outreach Journal, featuring excellent downloadable articles on Darwin, teaching evolution, featuring new developments on eye evolution.
Click here for links and sample abstracts.

2009: the Year of Darwin
Two Articles and a Book (announced by ENSI co-Director Craig Nelson):
Darwin 200 - Special issue of Nature
Recipes for Life: How Genes Evolve (New Science)
Book: Darwin's Sacred Cause
Click here for links and comments

Excellent program, showing how new evidence and analytical techniques can bring about changes in the interpretation of data. Two major views of the origin of bird flight are presented, along with recent studies and fossils that shed light on the issue. This online site provides viewing of all 6 parts ("chapters") of the program, so that one or more can be shown to your students, with discussion in between. If you develop a worksheet with questions for students to answer (in class or at home) during viewing, please share.

How the different views (and new evidence) affects the construction of phylogenetic trees would be an excellent sequence to show during your unit on classification or evolution. See Chapters 2 and 6 for these clips.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/microraptor/program.html

Our ORIGAMI BIRDS (by ENSI teacher Karin Westerling) might be an interesting lesson to use in conjunction with watching this video.

Welcome to Expelled Exposed - a detailed look at the Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. We'll show you why this movie is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none.

To learn why the claims made in Expelled are false, find out The Truth behind the Fiction. For information on the producers and their actions, go Behind the Scenes. To learn more about evolution and intelligent design, or to see what other people thought of Expelled, view our links to other online Resources. http://www.expelledexposed.com/

Click here for a more detailed press release, along with some suggestions and cautions.

The other, by Jennifer Robbins and Pamela Roy, was published in The American Biology Teacher for October 2007. How would you like to see your students increase their accurate explanations of evolution from 6% before the unit, to 92% afterwards? Likewise, wouldn't it feel good if the number of your students accepting evolution as a viable explanation of diversity went from 59% before your course to 92% afterwards? These are the kinds of results obtained from a closely monitored approach to teaching evolution. See more details at http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/effective evol.tchng.html

Just Released! This CD contains a set of engaging activities that align with the 2005 Evolution Symposium organized by BSCS, AIBS, and NABT, which brought together leading experts and provided science teachers with a general review of the philosophical issues surrounding the teaching of evolution and a broad update on current evolutionary science content related to the environment.

This CD contains a compilation of six major sections and 12 complete classroom activities, including copymasters. Evolution and the Environment: Activities for the Classroom 2005 brings to life the intimate relationship between evolution and the environment.

ALSO, see Evolution Science & Society: Activities for the Clasroom 2004

For a look at the contents of these two sources, click here!
If you try any of these activities, and they work well in your classes, let us know here.

New materials available for teaching macroevolution and new evolution-development advances: Click Here.
Macroevolution: Evolution above the Species Level. Materials from the special all day symposium at NABT in October, 2006.
Bringing Evo-Devo to the Classroom. A PowerPoint lecture by Dr. James Platt
A FIN is a LIMB is a WING. Evo-Devo Article in the November 2006 National Geographic
Additional Evo-Devo Resources. Science articles, HHMI-Evolution DVD, Sean Carroll, etc.

Every biology teacher should read the essay by Keith B. Miller on "Countering Public Misconceptions About the Nature of Evolutionary Science." This 15-page article can be found at http://www.gpc.edu/~jaliff/GAJSci63-3.pdf. The article is on pdf pages 35-49.
It is one of a collection of essays by the presenters at a symposium on "Teaching Evolution and the Challenge of Intelligent Design" at the 66th annual meeting of the Southeastern Society of Biologists, held at the University of Alabama in April, 2005. They were published in the Georgia Journal of Science, vol.63, #3, 2005. Other articles include "The Alleged Fallacies of Evolutionary Theory," "Why ID is More Interesting than Old-Fashioned Creationism," and "Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse: A Closer Look at ID."

Evolutionary Developmental Biology: This cutting-edge area of biological research is enjoying much attention, and providing dramatic, visual confirmation of evolution. More importantly, the work is bringing clear, compelling evidence for macroevolution. Every knowledgeable biology teacher who recognizes the reality of evolution will want to share this exciting new material with students. Vivid teaching ideas and materials are being developed, and I would encourage you to seek them out and use them in your classes. Don't wait for this to appear in textbooks.
Click here for more information on Evo-Devo in... the NABT Convention in Albuquerque, ABT Guest Editorial, Summer Reading, Whale Evolution, and other resources.

Abstract: A strategy for teaching high school biology that opens with an intensive nature-of-science unit followed by question-raising topics, leading directly to evolution as a solution and a unifying theme. This special sequence-using specially designed student-centered lessons-is compelling and non-threatening for students.

Article by ENSI webmaster Larry Flammer in the March issue of the NABT Journal, new online version. Ideal for new teachers still searching for an effective approach to teaching interactive biology with strong nature-of-science and evolution themes throughout. Classroom tested over many years. Direct links to many ENSI lessons and resources in context.

Molecular and genetic studies have made it increasingly clear that apes are biologically much closer to humans than their traditional taxonomy would indicate (if classified by the same criteria used for other species). As a result, a taxonomy that reflects that relationship much more accurately has been adopted. The main changes: the family Hominidae ("hominids") now includes the African apes along with humans, and all humans (including all their extinct bipedal predecessors and cousins) are now placed in the subfamily Homininae ("hominins"). Every effort is being made to reflect those changes in all the material (lessons and articles) on this site. This includes a number of modifications to our Chronology Lab, where the hominin fossil record is plotted on a chronological time scale, clearly showing the bush-like nature of our "family tree." We have also made major changes to our Primate Classification "boxes-in-boxes" lesson. If you find any item overlooked, please let us know. Click here for more details.

This is a most informative and useful issue with excellent teaching ideas. Check your newsstands, get a copy, and read it! Below are some abstracts for the main articles, but you need to read the articles to see how you could apply their contents to your teaching.

CAPSULES (Click here for more details on 3-page PDF):
Mark Perakh shows how Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument (key support for "intelligent design") is not only erroneous, but also becomes an argument against "intelligent design."
David Morrison suggests that we should avoid using the T word in "theory of evolution. He also points out other ways to "level the playing field," so that creationist are not put on the defensive, show why it's so important for everyone to understand evolution, and might be more willing to at least hear what you have to say about evolution (?)
Jason Rosenhouse uses the Cambrian "explosion" to expose an example of how creationists purposely quote scientists out of context to convey negative ideas about evolution.
Sean B. Carroll explains how we can use the new field of Evo Devo to ignite enthusiasm with visible evidence of how evolution happens. Lots of good ideas for making evolution the central theme of your course.
 

This latest issue of the California Journal of Science Education is a Must-Read. It can be shocking for a teacher to realize that many of the science concepts diligently taught are simply not accepted by many of their students, mainly because of the many misconceptions they have acquired in their young lives. They may "learn" the material presented in class, and even pass the tests, but misconceptions are very common, and very hard to replace. Unfortunately, many of these misconceptions persist in textbooks, and even you, as a science teacher, may find that you have some of these misconceptions.

The Checks Lab
- (3 sets of checks; scroll down)
A Step in Speciation
- (new colored Salamander sheet and Calif. Grid)
A Peek at the Past
- (Caminalcules: 2 sheets; scroll to bottom)
Nuts & Bolts: Is Classification Arbitrary?
- (Primate Morphology Terms)
Chromosome Comparison:
- high resolution page of all chromosomes of 4 hominoids

These new pages are 300 dpi and around 1 MB each, so we recommend DSL or other high speed internet access for reasonable download time. They are about as sharp as you would get with mailed-to-you hardcopy of our masters.

This article makes a strong case for using lessons that provide experience with a critical yet seldom addressed process of science: Historical Science, in contrast to the "The" Scientific Method, the process used in experimental science, and usually the only process of science presented in science classes. Historical Science is equally valid, and is the basis for many studies in many fields of science, including paleontology, geology, astronomy, evolution, and forensic science.

What Came Before DNA? Scientists may soon reveal how life began on Earth, by creating a primordial organism in the lab. By Carl Zimmer
Pages 34-41. Reviews our current knowledge and proposals about the process of life's origins on Earth, and discusses current efforts to replicate the process in the laboratory.

Useless Body Parts. By Jocelyn Selim in the same issue, pages 42-45. A brief listing and discussion of about 20 of the many vestigial and atavistic structures in our body, along with data about how many (or few) in our population have some of these structures, and what their original functions may have been. This content would be a useful addition to our "Blocks & Screws: Contrivances" lesson.

Other items of note in this issue include:
Page 15: "In 1619 Lucilio Vanini was burned at the stake for proposing that humans evolved from apes." (From the Discover Science Almanac, page 397). Do you sometimes get the feeling that our society might be slipping back in that direction?

Page 17: "How closely related are people to each other? And how closely does our genome match up with those of other primates?" Brief response by Jonathan Marks at University of North Carolina.

These and other articles are FREE online to Discover Magazine subscribers (convenient for classroom use). Just go to <http://www.discover.com/restricted-access/>, click next to "Already a magazine subscriber?", and sign up.

Don't miss this excellent article. It would make a very useful extension or alternative to our Skulls Lab and our Chronology Lab. It includes three compatible full-page diagrams (suitable for overheads and handouts) of provisional family trees, according to Tim White (a "lumper"), Ian Tattersall (a "splitter"), and Meave Leakey (a "no-lines splitter"), all based on 29 selected fossil hominins (out of the thousands found), identified by their accession numbers and currently assigned names.

The article is built around getting students to see and distinguish the "facts" (discovered and dated fossils), from their legitimately differing interpretations by experts in the field. This is an excellent example for engaging students in seeing and discussing important elements of science at work in the dynamic field of paleoanthropology, including uncertainty and scientific controversy, and the reasons behind these issues. Lots of good teaching ideas.