Efforts to Improve Evolution Teaching Bearing Fruit

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Over 150 year since Darwin described his theory of evolution by means of natural selection, and 50% of U.S. americans still have not accepted it.


The project Evolution Readiness by the Concord Consortium and Boston College aim to improve the situation by teaching the basics of evolution starting as young as elementary school. The goal of this technology-enhanced inquiry-based curriculum is not to make students "believe" in evolution, but understand evolution as an explanation of the natural world, says researcher Paul Horwitz. Findings suggest that students who participate in the program show significantly better understanding than those in a control group.


Evolution is central to the understanding of biology, but notoriously difficult to learn as many people hold deep-seated alternative ideas. Teaching young children the basic mechanisms of evolution seems to be a promising way.

Full article here: Efforts to Improve Evolution Teaching Bearing Fruit