Curated OER
Why Is Evolution Controversial?
Students explore why evolution has always been a controversial topic. They use scientific process to determine patterns and to critically analyze alternative explanations for natural phenomena.
ARKive
Biodiversity and Evolution – Darwin’s Finches
Teens experience natural selection firsthand (or first beak) in an activity that has them act as finches foraging for food. Using different household items  to act as different beak styles, your little finches will collect as much food...
Curated OER
What Proof is There to Support Biological evolution?
Pupils identify who developed the theory of evolution. The concepts of adaptation and development are discussed. The age of the earth is explored in relationship to the development of various species. The condition of the environment of...
Curated OER
Intelligent Design Fumbles; Evolution Still Going Strong
Students examine how all life is related and how species are classified. They also discover how traits are passed down from one person to the next. They examine the evolution the arthropod has going through.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Reading Primary Sources: Darwin and Wallace
Take your classes back in time. Learners read real historical texts from both Darwin and Wallace as well as an announcement of their findings. Using guiding questions, they make inferences and draw conclusions from the information in the...
Curated OER
WHAT DARWIN NEVER SAW: Evolution, Science, Biology, Natural Selection
Students view video showing recent field work on a twenty two-year study of finch beaks on a small island in the Galapagos, showing natural selection clearly operating in the wild.
Curated OER
Molecular Sequences & Primate Evolution: Amino Acids, Hemoglobins in Evolution
Students compare differences in amino acids in the beta hemoglobin from representative primates, complete a matrix of those differences, and from these data, construct and interpret cladograms as they reflect relationships and timing of...
Curated OER
Time Machine: Evolution, Geology
Students are taken on a simulated "voyage" backward in time, to the beginning of our planet. They "witness" that beginning, the origin of life, and a number of key events from then to the present.
Wild Screen
Evolution and Adaptation
The lesson on adaptation and evolution included here is a bit difficult to navigate using the teacher notes, but if you start with the handout, there are directions to guide you through the lesson. The link to the scrapbook within the...
Curated OER
Inherit the Wind
Young scholars explore the theory of evolution and read the play Inherit The Wind and a series of articles and essays about the famous Scopes trial that centered around the right to teach evolution. They incorporate technology as they...
Curated OER
Whose "Truth" Is Out There?
Students read article It's a Fact: Faith and Theory Collide Over Evolution, and examine different ways people arrive at what 'the truth' is, focusing on the evolution vs creationism debate that has been a hot topic throughout the 20th...
Historical Thinking Matters
Scopes Trial: 3 Day Lesson
Was the Scopes trial more complicated than a simple debate between evolutionists and creationists? As part of a structured academic controversy (SAC) activity, pupils consider multiple perspectives of the Butler Act and engage in close...
Curated OER
What is Cultural Evolution?
Students comprehend what is meant by Cultural Evolution and that it primarily applies at Human Evolution, but that there are examples in higher mammals such as a killer whales, dolphins and great apes of particular groups by exploring...
Curated OER
They're more evolved that way
Students explore the notion of local evolution, or genetic selectivity among different continent-based human populations. They consider specific examples of local evolution, such as lactose tolerance, skin color, and cognitive capacity,...
Curated OER
Theory, Theory, Who's got the theory?
Learners analyze 5 separate theories of evolution in order to help them explain the different meanings of theory, how human values influence science, and that the scientific view of the origin of life does not involve supernatural forces.
Curated OER
Ecology and Evolution
Young scholars identify the different taxonomic classifications of organisms. In this biology lesson, students create their own organisms and make some changes according to environmental conditions. They present their work in class.
Curated OER
You Have All the Answers
Students explore the concept of theories in science while examining the theory of evolution. They conduct research and participate in a discussion about current issues in science culminating in the creation of question and answer pamphlets.
Curated OER
What a Cosmic Web We Weave
Young scholars explore, using journals and discussion in small groups, how the universe has evolved since the theoretical Big Bang and create dramatizations of various eras in cosmic evolution.
Curated OER
Darwinist Dogma?
Young scholars debate whether teachers should be mandated to present theories challenging evolution in their classrooms. For homework, they write letters to their local school board expressing their own opinions.
Historical Thinking Matters
Scopes Trial: 1 Day Lesson
Why did many Tennesseeans support the 1925 Butler Act, which forbade the teaching of evolution? Using several primary source documents and a brief video clip, your young historians will draw connections between the broader historical...
Curated OER
Improbability of Evolution
Young scholars disprove evolution. In this science lesson, students disprove evolution by attempting to prove that creation is the way it all began. They use the improbability that evolution could exist and expose its fallacies, frauds...
Curated OER
Mutualism and Co-evolution A study of Flowering Plants and their Pollinators: Biology, Plants
These lessons use a variety of methods and approaches to teach flowering plant biology which includes seed germination; plant growth and food production through photosynthesis; plant transpiration and respiration; sexual reproduction...
Curated OER
Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Grasping the Idea of Evolution
Students compare and their performance of a series of tasks using their thumb and fingers to their performance of the same tasks without the use of their thumb. The class discussion that follows the activity defines and discusses the...
Curated OER
Teaching with Primary Sources Across Tennessee
Students examine Gee's Bend Alabama. In this resettlement activity, students view a series of photographs taken of Gee's Bend Alabama. Students will write a series of newspaper articles based on the images, that exemplify the evolution...