Evolution education down to a science on Web
UC Berkeley experts offer teachers advice on facing 'pitfalls'
sfgate.com
As controversies simmer across the country over teaching evolution, scientists at UC Berkeley are taking the offensive against the modern-day foes of Charles Darwin.
Experts at the university's Museum of Paleontology have created a new Web site designed to offer beleaguered classroom teachers support and guidance through the often slippery attacks they can encounter teaching natural selection and other concepts.
The site, at evolution.berkeley.edu, grew out of a conference that the museum hosted four years ago at which representatives from virtually every national scientific and education organization gathered to consider the growing pressures against evolution curricula.
"We realized we really needed to put new resources into teachers' hands, and that's how the idea of using the Internet emerged," said David Lindberg, chairman of Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology and former director of the paleontology museum.
The Web site was developed with a $460,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, and its creators have another $380,000 grant -- this time from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute -- to develop a version for the general public and another for students.
The new site offers a basic course in the methods of science and, in particular, the mechanics of evolution. It provides a history of evolutionary thought and discusses "misconceptions" and "pitfalls" that teachers may confront in explaining evolutionary concepts.
Here's the site , basic readable and comprehensive outline of evo~sciences ...has a little "Cal" humor too :
evolution.berkeley.edu |
