Introducing Evolution by Natural Selection

I'm slowly introducing some concepts to my students about evolution without actually mentioning evolution or natural selection. As I noted in an earlier post, I'm using mealworms as a springboard, of sorts. Today we discussed some differences and similarities between the mealworms we observed in class, and in the end I introduced the term "variation." We also discussed some of the more obvious variations among humans, but in my experience, students generally think of human variation as a special quality of humans - we are, after all, not "animals" in their view. For homework I am having students consider whether all this variation is such a good idea, from the point of view of the mealworms, or mightn't they be better off if they were all identical? I'm looking forward to the discussion in class.

What I am a little apprehensive about is the inevitable discussion of religious accounts of the origin of species. I like whenever possible to tap into students' prior knowledge or existing models of how the world works. But in eliciting prior knowledge about this particular subject, some religious conflict will be unavoidable. The fossil evidence particularly contradicts biblical accounts of creation, and students will have to find a way to deal with that conflict - either by rejecting the evidence (as many religious fundamentalists do) or by modifying their current models.

I will devote the next few posts to discussing how these conversations with students progress over the next couple of weeks.
<>
The other strand we are currently working on is using the mealworms to conduct controlled experiments. In both my regents classes, students are now reviewing experimental design by working on a simple problem question, testing a hypothesis about different foods and how they might affect the growth of the mealworms. Afterwards, students will continue observing and asking questions, which should eventually lead to more sophisticated and complex experiments. Students will have ample time to collect data over the course of the school year in conducting experiments that will relate in some way to one or more of our major themes in regents biology - living vs. nonliving things, homeostasis, ecology, heredity & genetics, reproduction & development, etc.