K12 Students
Facilitators: Al Janulaw and Irene Eckstrand
K-12
teachers are key to meeting the goal of improving student learning, and scientific
and education professional socieites should work together toward common goals. The
existing science standards documents (Benchmarks and NRC National Science Education
Standards) are not well known by scientists, but provide an excellent framework for
improving evolution education. In addition, several groups (Project 2061, for example)
are focusing on evaluating and improving the quality of materials. Professional science
societies can increase their members' awareness of the resources that already exist and provide
training to scientists who wish to work at their local levels. Society
members may become involved with students, such as in collaborative research projects or providing
science fair awards for evolution projects. While much work needs to
be done at the secondary level, elementary and junior high school students
need to hear much more about evolution in an engaging, real world manner.
Societies should support the development and promotion of materials that
would accomplish these goals.
K12 Teachers
Facilitators: Mike Howell, John Jungck and Lisa White
Discussions
focused on (1) the existing knowledge base of K-12 teachers, (2) the ways
in which they attain this knowledge, and (3) the ways in which societies
might improve upon the way that teachers receive and understand information.
How teachers receive information about evolution is filtered through their
own experiences as students, as teachers, and as individuals. There are
different attitudes toward the teaching of evolution: those teachers who
are teaching evolution but want more information, those teachers who would
teach evolution if they knew more and had better resources, those teachers
who feel alone and under siege in districts where the teaching of evolution
is not supported, and those teachers who are frightened of teaching evolution.
Bridging gaps that may exist between various educational entities and
professional organizations/associations is key in supporting these teachers.
Professional development initiatives should provide better incentives
for teachers (both pre-service and in-service) to engage in new training
and curricular development activities that have the full support of administrators.
Evolution needs to be viewed as the common unifying thread in science
and as relevant to our daily lives.
Undergraduates
Facilitators: Buzz Hoagland and Gordon Uno
The majority of U.S. colleges and universities require all students to
complete one or two science courses to fulfill the general education component
of their education. Unfortunately, many of these courses either do not
include evolution or do not emphasize evolution as the unifying theme.
Evolution is good science. And, because of its inherent richness, a curriculum
designed with evolution as its unifying theme is a mile wide and a mile
deep. The very nature of evolution invites students to participate in
the broader aspects of scientific inquiry. They learn to formulate questions,
generate hypotheses, test hypotheses, . . .; in short, undergraduates
learn how to participate fully in the process of science through the study
of evolution.
We can expect undergraduates to more fully understand evolution
only after it becomes the unifying theme for biology, geology, and physical
science general education courses. Additionally, there is a rich research
literature addressing teaching and learning issues with which we as science
educators must become better acquainted. Finally, we must open the lines
of communication within our individual departments and among departments
and encourage faculty to take advantage of those pedagogical techniques
that have been demonstrated to improve student learning.
General Public
Facilitators: Lee Allison and Richard Bambach
The
goals of NCTE should be to increase public understanding and acceptance
of science and to develop support for effective education in all aspects
of science, including evolution. There is no single audience defined by
the term "general public," rather there are several audiences to be identified.
Within the United States, there is a great middle that is very interested
in science. It is important to reach this middle sector and show them
why and how evolution is important to their lives. Societies should work
together to: (1) ensure sufficient scientific voices in continual dialogue,
(2) harness the web, (3) support cross fertilization among societies ,
and (4) nurture religious understanding for science, as religious groups
are major stakeholders in support of teaching evolution. We need to do
a better job of "marketing" science.
Policy Makers
Facilitators: Kip Bollinger
The term policy makers was replaced with decision-makers as being a more
accurate descriptor of the audience under discussion. The message to decision-makers
should be: consistent, concise, and positive. The message should turn
on the central, positive principle: Evolution is good science. Decision-makers
need to know about evolution and the nature of science, about the relevance
of evolution to society, and about teaching evolution. Advocacy for evolution
should occur at multiple levels: national, state, and local. Individual
citizen-scientists are best positioned to pursue advocacy at the local
level, while organizations and coalitions of organizations are best positioned
to influence decision-makers at the state and national levels.
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