Evolution Teaching Team

Summary

Evolution is the central organizing principle biologists use to understand the natural world. It accounts for the similarities among living things and the diversity of life. The Evolution Teaching Team uses hands-on and visual approaches to teach students core concepts in evolutionary biology such as natural selection, common descent, homology, inbreeding and dispersal, and evolutionary time scales. Through our teaching modules we seek to create an engaging atmosphere for students to learn, to introduce students to 2-4 new concepts in evolutionary biology, and to stimulate students to ask new questions.

Who We Are

The Evolution Teaching team is comprised of graduate students at Washington University in St. Louis working towards doctoral degrees in science. While we come from diverse backgrounds and are undertaking research in diverse areas, we share a common interest in science education. We have volunteered in elementary, middle and high school classrooms, after school programs, and Washington University's own Women in Science day for high school girls. We hope to share our excitement and expertise in science with area students and to serve as positive role models in higher education.

Our Teaching Modules

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Natural Selection Lab – Using forks, chopsticks, and spoons students simulate trait variation and differential survival within a population of birds. Students compete against one another for food over multiple rounds (generations) and observe how natural selection can alter the frequency of different traits over time within a population.

Tree Building – Using an array of plastic creatures students learn about the concept of homology by reconstructing evolutionary relationships and building phylogenies.

Rope of Life – Just how old is the earth? Students learn to think in terms of evolutionary time scales by retracing key events in the history of our planet along the Rope of Life.