Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science

by U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Working Group on Teaching Evolution, Board on Science Education

Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science provides a well-structured framework for understanding and teaching evolution. Written for teachers, parents, and community officials as well as for scientists and educators, this book illustrates how evolution explains both the great diversity and the underlying similarity of the earth's organisms; it explores how scientists approach the question of evolution; and it describes the nature of science as a way of knowing about the natural world. In addition, the book provides answers to frequently asked questions to help readers understand many of the issues and misconceptions about evolution.

Genres: Evolution, Science, Teaching, Nonfiction

150 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[João · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides a pedagogic guide for teaching evolution across multiple grades/age-groups, including examples of activities. However it suffers from being too much US-centered (e.g. how to deal with creationists is a major topic), heavy usage of direct quotations from other instructional materials, and also, it is overly simplistic at times.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I read almost the whole thing - I couldn't make it through the appendix. The NSTA statement on teaching evolution was ok; I think the NABT statement is just too similar for me to read right now.

This book is a pretty good book; it includes information about evolution and teaching activities. I'm just a little tired of evolution. We spent quite a bit of class time discussing readings on this topic. Although I'm slightly more interested in biology than I was a month and a half ago, my interest is still minimal. I think this book was too specific to be very relevant for me.

[Ren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used for several activities on the nature of science and evolution - the dots lab was particularly good. Others were a bit more advanced than middle school, but the initial writing was also a useful text to excerpt and share as classroom readings.