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Because video games are so popular with young people, researchers have explored ways to use game play to engage students in school subjects (Peppler & Kafai, 2007; Rockwell & Kee, 2011; Small, 2011). Motivating students in science is especially important because of declines both in the number of young people who choose science careers and in the number of adults who have a sufficient grasp of science to make thoughtful decisions (Bell, Lewenstein, Shouse, & Feder, 2009). To counter these trends, informal science educators have adopted video games and simulations as teaching tools and have called for research on how games can motivate youth to engage with science (Honey & Hilton, 2011). Video games that provide level-building capabilities (Reiber, 2005) can be particularly useful in fostering informal science learning. To add to the knowledge base, the authors studied how students used level-based video game development in an out-of-school time (OST) setting to learn science content. Building on prior efforts (Evans & Biedler, 2012; Evans, Norton, Chang, Deater-Deckard, & Balci, 2013; Evans, Pruett, Chang, & Nino, 2014), they explored how the project incorporated the video game to support learners' science motivation. This work with a commercial off-the-shelf video game is an example of how a learner-centered, technology-infused approach can advance the theory and practice of informal science learning (Honey & Hilton, 2011).

This study examines the subjects and concepts in biology perceived to be difficult to learn and teach by 759 pre-service biology teachers registered in the pedagogical formation program at Uludag University Faculty of Education in the academic year of 2005-2016, as well as the associations that word "biology" first calls to their mind. The study was designed as a survey model, and a questionnaire of three scaled questions was used as a data collection tool. The data were classified into 10 different categories based on different branches of biology: Anatomy-Morphology, Biotechnology, Ecology, Evolution, Physiology, Genetics, Histology, Cytology, Systematics and Reproduction and Development. Following the classification, the data were analyzed using frequency and percentages. The subjects and concepts perceived to be difficult to learn by the pre-service teachers are respectively as follows: photosynthesis and its stages, genetics, circulatory system, aerobic respiration, respiratory system, anaerobic respiration, protein synthesis, phanerogams, DNA structure and function, cryptogams, mitosis, plant systematics, endocrine system, meiosis, ETC, urinary system, plant physiology, taxonomy, evolution and digestive system. The subjects and concepts perceived to be difficult to teach by the pre-service teachers are respectively as follows: photosynthesis and its stages, protein synthesis, circulatory system, endocrine system, meiosis, plant systematics, evolution, mitosis, reproduction, genetic crossing over problems, Latinization of names, urinary system, genetics, ecology, aerobic respiration, DNA structure and function, plant tissues, glycolysis and anaerobic respiration. These findings confirm the need for developing undergraduate programs in biology and promoting the research culture at the secondary education level.

Biological evolution stands out as critically important content for K-12 education as it is considered a cornerstone of the biological sciences. Yet, it remains one of the most socially controversial topics related to science education. In this exploratory study, we are seeking to understand the ways elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) use their views of science to justify including or excluding alternative explanations to evolution in the science curriculum. This investigation included 76 PSTs who were enrolled in an elementary science methods course. Data came from an activity designed by the authors entitled "Science in the Public Schools--School Board Scenario." The scenario proposed that the local school board was considering a motion to alter the science curriculum by introducing creationism and intelligent design (ID) to the unit on biological evolution and the PSTs had to offer their informed recommendations. The two researchers independently read and coded the data using an inductive, constant comparative approach. Findings revealed that 32 would not add creationism or ID, 26 would add both, 9 would add creationism, 6 would add ID, and 3 would only mention them. PSTs came up with diverse explanations for their decision on if to include alternative explanations when teaching evolution. Common rationales emerged within each group and are further explored.

This study characterized perceptions of agricultural leadership programs in colleges of agriculture, food, life, human, or environmental sciences at 1,862 land-grant institutions. Objectives included describing the need for programs, studying evolution within the discipline, discussing faculty recommendations for future development, and examining why programs are relevant. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis, which included open and axial coding. A total of 26 academic agricultural leadership programs were identified, and a telephone interview was completed by 19 agricultural leadership faculty members. Results of the study indicated agricultural leadership was historically founded under the umbrella of agricultural and extension education but also evolved from a need in industry. The discipline evolved because the academic subject matter was broadly appealing to students, and its growth was also spurred by the popularity of community and rural leadership development programs. To improve agricultural leadership programs, faculty surveyed recommended collaborative efforts across the discipline to establish a unified vision and a national professional organization. Throughout the interviews, themes emerged related to the relevancy of agricultural leadership programs in higher education: (1) The agricultural leadership discipline creates leaders through developing "human capital," and (2) graduates promote industry growth through their political, policy, and public influence. Future recommendations for research included identifying perceptions of agricultural leadership beyond the scope of 1,862 land-grant institutions.

Computerized classification of student answers offers the possibility of instant feedback and improved learning. Open response (OR) questions provide greater insight into student thinking and understanding than more constrained multiple choice (MC) questions, but development of automated classifiers is more difficult, often requiring training a machine learning system with many human-classified answers. Here we explore a novel intermediate constraint question format called WordBytes (WB) where students assemble one-sentence answers to two different college evolutionary biology questions by choosing, then ordering, fixed tiles containing words and phrases. We found WB allowed students to construct hundreds to thousands of different answers (= 20 tiles), with multiple ways to express correct and incorrect answers with different misconceptions. We found humans could specify rules for an automated WB grader that could accurately classify answers as correct/incorrect with Cohen's kappa = 0.88, near the measured intra-rater reliability of two human graders and the performance of machine classification of OR answers (Nehm et al., 2012). Finer-grained classification to identify the specific misconception had lower accuracy (Cohen's kappa < 0.75), which could be improved either by using a machine learner or revising the rules, but both would require considerably more development effort. Our results indicate that WB may allow rapid development of automated correct/incorrect answer classification without collecting and hand-grading hundreds of student answers.

The author considers the biological basis of the arts in human evolution, which she holds to be grounded in ethology and interpersonal neurobiology. In the arts, she argues, ordinary reality becomes extraordinary by attention-getting, emotionally salient devices that also appear in ritualized animal behaviors, many kinds of play, and the playful interactions of human mothers with their infants. She hypothesizes that these interactions evolved in humans as a behavioral adaptation to a reduced gestation period, promoting emotional bonding between human mothers and their especially helpless infants. She notes that the secretion of opioids, including oxytocin, that accompany birth, lactation, and care giving in all mammals is amplified in human mothers by these devices, producing feelings of intimacy and trust that engender better child care. The same devices, exapted and acquired culturally as arts, she argues, became prominent features of group ritual ceremonies that reduced anxiety and unified participants, which also offered evolutionary advantages.

The variety of explanations to questions about the origin of life, life after death or about the role itself of being in the world are built on the rational reflection that integrates the ideology of human beings as well as less rational practices and more emotional ones than in the whole nourish what has been called "beliefs". Therefore, the aim of this study was to construct an instrument to measure beliefs about the origin of life and life after death. A scale with a Likert 5-point response type was made up of 52 reagents; it was applied to 913 people of the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City to obtain their psychometric characteristics, all whose schooling was either basic or an academic PhD degree. To identify the discriminative power of each test item, internal consistency, exploratory factor analysis and Pearson's correlation, data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. The final scale was formed by 48 reagents distributed in 4factors that threw a Cronbach Alfa of 0.874. In conclusion, these results reveal a valid and reliable instrument as well as a useful tool for studying the phenomenon of the origin of life and life after death.

The topic 'Animals including humans' runs through the primary science National Curriculum in England (DfE, 2013). Ideally, topics such as inheritance will lead onto adaptation, natural selection and evolution across key stages 1 to 2 (ages 5-11). This article provides nine engaging activities to support the teaching of adaptation and improve children's skills in observation, discussion and classification (grouping). The activities have not been arranged in any age-related order because they can be adapted and used for children across both key stages 1 and 2. Several additional resources have been listed at the end. The activities described encourage children to observe and make comparisons and support their understanding of classification.

We present a drawing discovery lab that crosscuts multiple disciplines in biology and links concepts in genetics and evolutionary thinking to enhance understanding of the genotype-to-phenotype transformation. These combined concepts are also linked to ecological frameworks in nature through the model of biological plasticity. Students and teachers explore drawing skills to flesh out the future of a predator while engaging with the computational software MEGA, which introduces students and teachers to nucleotide changes, mutations, variation, phylogenetics, and molecular evolution.

Although John Scopes and his famous "Monkey Trial" strongly influenced the ongoing evolution-creationism controversy, relatively little is known about Scopes's post-trial life. Moreover, many questions about his trial remain unanswered (e.g., did he actually teach evolution in Dayton?). This paper answers these questions with new information from a previously ignored source -- his family and friends.

Computational thinking (CT) is a thought process composed of computer science ideas and skills that can be applied to solve problems and better understand the world around us. With the increase in technology and computing, STEM disciplines are becoming interwoven with computing. In order to better prepare students for STEM careers, computational literacy needs to be developed in K-12 education. We advocate the introduction of computational literacy through the incorporation of CT in core science courses, such as biology. Additionally, at least some of this integration should be unplugged, or without computers, so that all schools can participate in developing computational literacy. These lessons integrate unplugged CT and science content to help students develop CT competencies and learn natural selection content simultaneously through a series of lessons in which unplugged CT is leveraged for natural selection learning within varying contexts. In these lessons, students engage in the creation of handwritten algorithmic explanations of natural selection. Students build CT skills while making sense of the process, resulting in converged learning about CT and science. This article presents a description of CT, the specifics of the classroom implementation and lessons, student work and outcomes, and conclusions drawn from this work.

The origin of life is one of the most interesting and challenging questions in biology. This article discusses relevant contemporary theories and hypotheses about the origin of life, recent scientific evidence supporting them, and the main contributions of several scientists of different nationalities and specialties in different disciplines. Also discussed are several ideas about the characteristics of the most recent common ancestor, also called the "last universal common ancestor" (or LUCA), including cellular status (unicellular or community) and homogeneity level.

Evolution by natural selection is key to understanding life and of considerable practical importance in public health, medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture. "The Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) include natural selection among several evolutionary concepts that all third-graders should know. This article explores a novel approach to developing and testing curricula for teaching natural selection and related concepts to children. College students developed lesson plans with specific evolutionary learning objectives based on the NGSS and taught them at elementary schools. Learning was assessed with a pre/post-test design, and a subset of students was retested after two years. After just two hours of instruction and active-learning activities, students of all three grade levels tested (grades 3-5) demonstrated substantial improvement in their understanding of evolutionary concepts. Students who were retested in grade 5 scored higher than fifth-graders who had not participated previously. The most challenging concepts for all grade levels were common ancestry and natural selection, but fifth-graders showed more improvement than third- and fourth-graders. If this finding is substantiated by further research, an adjustment to the NGSS schedule might be warranted. Spacing evolutionary biology concepts out might be a better strategy than concentrating them all in grade 3.

Arguing from evidence is one of eight key science practices in which students should engage. It is an essential component of science, yet students have difficulties with this practice. We describe a scaffolded claims-evidence-reasoning (CER) argumentation framework that is embedded within a new eight-week, freely available curriculum unit developed by the Genetic Science Learning Center -- "Evolution: DNA and the Unity of Life." The scaffold provides high school students with practice in both developing and evaluating written arguments. It is designed to incrementally build student skill week-by-week, starting with an introduction to the CER components of an argument, and ending with students evaluating data and constructing a supported written argument. We also present evaluation findings from field testing the argumentation scaffold in the context of the complete "Evolution" unit in dozens of classrooms. And we discuss how this integrated, scaffolded approach to argumentation influenced both student and teacher learning.

When it comes to creationism, it might seem as if the United States is trapped in a century-long culture-war rut. In a sense, the Scopes Trial of 1925 put science itself on trial, and it can seem as if every new dispute over teaching evolution is only a repetition of that famous trial. In truth, however, the power of creationism has ebbed dramatically over the past 100 years. Adam Laats examines the history of creationist activism and describes the radical diminution in the power of creationism in America's public schools.

Central to evolution is the concept of a common ancestry from which all life has emerged over immense time scales, but learning and teaching temporal aspects of evolution remain challenging. This study investigated students' interpretation of evolutionary time when engaging with a multi-touch tabletop application called DeepTree, a dynamic visualization of a phylogenetic tree. Specifically, we explored how interactive finger-based zooming (zooming "in" and "out") influenced students' interpretation of evolutionary time, and how temporal information and relationships were conceptualized during interaction. Transcript analysis of videotaped interview data from ten secondary school students while they interacted with DeepTree revealed that zooming was interpreted in two ways: as spatially orientated (movement within the tree itself), or as time-orientated (movement in time). Identified misinterpretations included perceiving an implicit coherent timeline along the y-axis of the tree, that the zooming time duration in the virtual tree was linearly correlated to real time, and that more branch nodes correspond to a longer time. Sources for erroneous interpretations may lie in transferring everyday sensory experiences (e.g., physical movements and observing tree growth) to understanding abstract evolution concepts. Apart from estimating the occurrence of dinosaurs, DeepTree was associated with an improvement in interpretation of relative order of evolutionary events. Although highly promising, zooming interaction in DeepTree does not facilitate an intuitive understanding of evolutionary time. However, the opportunity to combine visual and bodily action in emerging technologies such as Deep Tree suggests a high pedagogical potential of further development of zooming features for optimal scientific understanding.

The natural pedagogy hypothesis proposes that human infants preferentially attend to communicative signals from others, facilitating rapid cultural learning. In this view, sensitivity to such signals is a uniquely human adaptation and as such nonhuman animals should not produce or utilize these communicative signals. We test these evolutionary predictions by examining sensitivity to communicative cues in 206 rhesus monkeys ("Macaca mulatta") using an expectancy looking time task modeled on prior work with infants. Monkeys observed a human actor who either made eye contact and vocalized to the monkey ("social cue"), or waved a fruit in front of her face and produced a tapping sound ("nonsocial cue"). The actor then either looked at an object ("referential look") or looked toward empty space ("look away"). We found that, unlike human infants in analogous situations, rhesus monkeys looked longer at events following nonsocial cues, regardless of the demonstrator's subsequent looking behavior. Moreover younger and older monkeys showed similar patterns of responses across development. These results provide support for the natural pedagogy hypothesis, while also highlighting evolutionary changes in human sensitivity to communicative signals.

There already exists a large knowledge base about teaching and learning related to the origins, diversity and history of life on Earth. We know less about teaching and learning related to wider issues pertinent to both religion and science. In our research with 40 students in six secondary schools in England, we looked at wider issues of student perceptions of religion and science. Our study involved an intervention of six lessons in Science and six in Religious Education (RE). Issues of philosophy, including ethics, were raised in Science lessons. The RE lessons dealt with a variety of contexts that highlighted the question of the relationship(s) between religion and science. In both pre- and post-intervention interviews, we found many instances where students used language that conveyed a misconception of the epistemic distinctions between religion and science. Students referred to 'truth', 'theory' and 'facts' interchangeably when discussing religious "and" scientific knowledge. We argue that RE needs to attend to epistemic literacy if we are to both avoid epistemological misconceptions and enable students to develop insights into the specific knowledge forms manifested in religion(s).

Feedback is critically important to student learning, but the reduced frequency of assignments combined with isolated or stand-alone tasks reduces the opportunity for students to engage with feedback and use it effectively to enhance their learning. Here, I evaluate student attainment during a module consisting of eight iterated tasks where the task itself is the same but the academic content differs. At the end of the module, students then self-assess their eight submissions and select two for summative assessment. I demonstrate that achievement increases over the course of the module, and that choice is valuable in allowing students to achieve higher summative marks for the course than their formative marks would suggest. Students who performed more weakly at the start of the module saw the greatest benefits from practice and choice, suggesting that these students particularly can benefit from repeated cycles of feedback and increase their marks.

As the de facto language of science, English proficiency often serves as a gatekeeper for aspiring medical students in Puerto Rico because they encounter English-language instruction, textbooks, and high-stakes standardized tests throughout their studies. Employing ethnographic research methods, this case study documents the language practices in an Evolution course at a bilingual Puerto Rican university, which was cotaught by two non-Puerto Rican professors, neither of whom use English as their native language. Using interviews, a focus group, and video-recorded data, this study analyzes the language practices and pedagogies of both professors as they teach the same course and attempt to make the content comprehensible for their students. Our findings document the nonpurist linguistic behavior of the professors and how they built on their students' linguistic repertoires. Findings also point to how they adopted a nonprescriptive pedagogy that challenges pervasive monolingual ideologies in STEM.

The purpose of this study was to investigate bridging inferences and learning when students with low topic knowledge read multiple complementary biology texts. Using a think-aloud protocol, we assessed students' (n = 74) cognitive processes while they read one text about principles of natural selection and three texts about examples of natural selection. After reading, participants completed a topic knowledge posttest. Nonparametric tests indicated that readers who had high and moderate scores on the posttest generated more bridges to the principles text than readers who had low scores on the posttest. The multiple regression analysis indicated that bridging inferences to the principles text were predictive of scores on the topic knowledge posttest. An exploratory case analysis highlighted the importance of text-based bridging inferences to principles for readers with the highest scores on the topic knowledge posttest. These findings suggest that starting a set of complementary texts with an overview principles text followed by more exemplar-based texts can support learning when readers with low initial topic knowledge make inferences between principles and examples during reading.

Even though the concept of species is central in biology, the history of species concept and the existence of different species concepts are rarely discussed in biology classroom. This is unfortunate, as teachers could use the plurality of species concepts to enrich discussion in the classroom. Therefore, knowing the students' perception of species is essential to plan compatible strategies for teaching species. An open-ended question was administered to 548 high school students. A semantic network analysis was then used to explore the ideas of species in the students' responses, and further analyses were conducted to observe the co-existence of those ideas. The following five concepts were found: species as the lowest taxon in taxonomy (A1), species as a type of animal or plant (A2), species as the basic classification of living things (A3), genetic species concept (A4), and morphological species concept (A5). Of the five species concepts, naïve ideas were more frequent among responses, and some of them co-existed with normative ideas. As students mainly learn the concept of species through biology instruction, in this study, we have discussed the implications of our results for biology teaching and learning.

In this paper, we present a simulation of artificial selection of maize that can be used as a bridging case for the subsequent introduction of natural selection in school. The proposed simulation takes up essential biological elements but also has a cultural meaning for the inhabitants of some regions of Latin America. After implementing a test of the simulation with secondary school teachers, we identified fundamental ideas that are introduced as a result of participating in the simulation: intentionality, recognition of variants, gradual process and population. These ideas are relevant for understanding evolution as natural selection. Therefore, the simulation could be used as a bridging case because it focuses the attention on relevant ideas for artificial selection and leaves aside others that are not productive.

Training in compassion can lead to an enhanced ability to tolerate distress, maintain focus, and discern clinical interventions for clients in a variety of clinical scenarios. Cultivating a compassionate stance provides the opportunity to engage clients with full attention and presence, allowing openness and receptivity for both the painful and adaptive aspects of the grieving process. Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) applies principles of compassion from an evolutionary, neurobiological approach, which is of specific interest in situations of loss and grief, due to the intensity of the work and the need to provide clients with a secure base from which to they can begin the process of rebuilding their lives after a significant loss.

There is substantial body of literature in science education focusing on students' understanding of the theory of evolution by natural selection. However, despite decades of research on the evolution versus creationism debate there is still widespread concern that particular misconceptions about evolution persist. The study aimed to recalibrate the evolution versus creationism debate by engaging students in an argumentation task where students can interpret evidence and reasons for why either position is justified or not, and on what basis. A card sort activity used to investigate the students' use of evidence and reasons. A sample of 77 students with an average age of 13 participated in the study in England in the context of a funded research project. The findings pointed to challenges and opportunities in teaching and learning of evolution through an argumentation task where alternative perspectives are drawn from both science and religious education. Furthermore, they illustrated how argumentation tasks can potentially provide a context for students to explore cross-subject topics. Research about the immersion of students in tasks that support their argumentation can generate understanding of students' reasoning, and ultimately such research may lead to the design of lesson resources to support students' engagement in science.

The Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) has been extensively used in science education research for more than two decades. This study examines the fairness of MATE items based on religious convictions and academic majors. The multidimensional item response theory and differential item functioning analyses were run on data collected from 619 Korean undergraduate students. These participants included non-religious and Christian groups, as well as biology and non-biology majors. The results supported the two-dimensional model of MATE, consisting of the constructs of fact and credibility. The results indicated that all items were psychometrically sound. Further, the MATE instrument was a reliable measure of students' acceptance of the evolutionary theory. Additionally, DIF analysis showed that several MATE items were interpreted differently by students from different subgroups. Specifically, we found four religion-related DIF items and two academic major-related DIF items. The effect of DIF items on the estimated individual scores showed that DIF items widened the gaps between the MATE scores of the subgroups. The findings underscore the importance of the generalizability of an instrument, particularly the acceptance of the evolutionary theory, to achieve more accurate interpretations of the scores generated by the instrument.

A complex terminology developed around the evolutionary concept of adaptation. One definition of adaptation is synonymous with adaptive evolution and denotes a process of population change driven by natural selection resulting in individuals better able to survive and reproduce in a particular environment (compared to the population before the process began). This places adaptation at a hypothetical end point in a temporal sequence and can be difficult to use because the phenotypic composition of earlier, non-adapted populations is unknown. However, resurrection experiments can provide comparative data on populations before and after adaptation. The process of adaptation is a corollary to the well-described precepts of natural selection found in textbooks. Adaptation also denotes any trait that increases an organism's fitness relative to individuals lacking it. This 'all or none' concept of adaptation limits its usefulness because most traits are quantitative. Leaf pubescence, a quantitative trait showing phenotypic and genetic variation in plant species, is used to illustrate adaptive value and significance. Historical application of adaptation has ranged from individuals to populations to species and encompassed molecular and phenotypic traits. Although exaptation and maladaptation have some heuristic utility, 'pre-adaptation' is best avoided because it does not reflect adaptive evolution.

Evolution is an essential underlying concept in biology. Previous research demonstrates that many obstacles exist that prevent successful teaching and learning about evolution. This research study used the theoretical framework of cultural border crossing and its underlying cognitive explanation, collateral learning, to design an intervention for community college students in an introductory biology class for non-science majors. Cultural border crossing explains that learners might encounter extensive differences between their home cultures and the culture of the science classroom and may need assistance in navigating the crossing of these cultural borders. Collateral learning is the cognitive mechanism that can be used to resolve potentially conflicting schemata within one's cognitive structure. Quantitative data show a small positive effect on the students' understanding and acceptance. Qualitative data show how students' understanding and acceptance of evolution change after the intervention and when cultural border crossing and collateral learning occur. Results and themes suggest that more research is needed on how students' cultures influence their learning about evolution and how educators can best facilitate learning among students with various cultural beliefs about the diversity of life on Earth.

Most of the research on student understanding of evolution by natural selection has focused on undergraduate biology courses for science majors. However, the majority of undergraduates in the United States will not enroll in a biology course for majors. In this study, we identify the extent of natural selection understanding that students acquire through an undergraduate, non-majors geology course. Using a pre/post assessment model, we administered open-response items from the Bishop and Anderson Diagnostic Instrument and a religiosity scale. Student responses were coded for inclusion and correctness of five key principles of natural selection: variation in a population, origin of variation, inheritance, fitness, and change in a population over time. The majority of students included few, if any, key principles of natural selection in their responses prior to instruction, and improvement after direct instruction in their geology course was minimal (cheetah: mean pre 1.01, mean post 1.37; salamander: mean pre 0.79, mean post 1.15). In most cases, students' self-reported religiosity was unrelated to their knowledge of natural selection. Together, our results demonstrate that in spite of instruction, non-majors geology students struggle to describe the process of natural selection using foundational principles. We encourage the continued development of cross-disciplinary educational resources for this important population to help all students, regardless of major or career path, gain a more robust understanding of evolution by natural selection.

This paper explores how conversations among academics in a particular institutional context evolve, starting from the individual development of teachers and shifting in focus to institutional development. Results of our basic survey (N = 55) and semi-structured interviews with teachers (N = 13) who participated in lunch-time conversations on teaching and learning revealed that these encounters support individual academic development in several respects. Our findings also suggest that the evolution of conversations that are institutionally situated but distanced from the departmental context, may create a path to institutional change via collective learning.

This study examines what prior knowledge and misconceptions about evolutionary theory students bring with them into an introductory biological anthropology course. One hundred and fifty-three students completed short, anonymous surveys about evolution on the first day of class before any content was discussed. Of a possible seven points, the average score was 3.42, indicating that students overall had an incomplete understanding of evolutionary theory. The only demographic variables that were significantly correlated with the scores were sex and previous exposure to college-level biology. This sample of students performed comparably to students from other universities in similar studies, suggesting that these students' preexisting deficit in understanding evolution is not confined to Arkansas, the southeast, or other regions of the country reporting low acceptance of evolution and high levels of religious participation.

The author was greatly honoured to give the Garth Boomer address in 2020. In the strange year 2020, the author "spoke" at the superbly organised online event. In this article the author restates and reframes the case for literature teaching in English classrooms across the globe by arguing for it from the perspectives of modern interpretations of Darwinian theory. The author touches on the current plague that everyone is experiencing; it is a phenomenon as old as humanity and a reminder of the fragility and singleness as a species, however 'divided' by nationalisms and populisms. What have people learnt from history and literature? That can both be explained and justified why reading literature is so important for young people by considering literature as a special source of knowledge and understanding for all human beings, one that is part of evolution and adapted minds, and a part of 'culture' -- and of a culture that is itself evolving quite rapidly.

The purpose of this study was to explore science teachers' conceptions about micro-and macro-evolutionary processes. In this study, a case study was employed to compare and contrast novice and experienced middle school science teachers' evolution conceptions. The data were collected using four micro-and macro-evolutionary scenarios alongside cognitive interviews. The findings illustrated that while the novice teacher mostly provided non-Darwinian explanations, the experienced teacher predominantly applied key concepts of natural selection in her causal explanations, but cognitive biases regarding evolution were also found in her explanations. Therefore, the study suggested that the reasons for the coexistence of evolution concepts and cognitive biases be worthy of further exploration. The findings also indicated that even though the experienced teacher used several principles of macroevolution to explain the evolutionary changes above the species level, she based her causal explanations mainly on natural selection concepts. In this regard, the study recommended that teacher education programmes place special emphasis on the areas that are shown to be problematic for teachers like teaching and learning evolution, especially the concepts of macroevolution. The study also suggested that it may be worth the effort to develop a comprehensive qualitative measure in order to uncover learners' conceptions concerning macroevolution.

Though argumentation is a key component of scientific knowledge construction practices, it rarely occurs in classrooms worldwide. Moreover, related literature in the context of genetics and evolution learning primarily addresses them separately. In contrast, this paper is part of broader research on genetics and evolution instruction taught together through scientific practices. We focused on students' arguments and data use while working on a task that required developing explanatory links between sickle cell disease and malaria. Two research questions were framed: What is the nature of students' arguments while explaining these links? What data do they mobilise and how do they use them to support their arguments? Our qualitative approach followed discourse analysis methods. To assess the quality of arguments, theoretical and empirical criteria were used, including the justifications and causal language in the arguments as well as theoretical considerations of genetics and evolution knowledge. The analysis of the second question focused on data use and their sources. The results pointed to students' difficulties in building quality arguments using clear causal language, and to use of genetics and evolution notions in their conclusions. We suggest implications regarding how to address processes occurring on different time scales in combined genetics and evolution instruction.

Even highly urban environments are settings for outdoor learning of local biodiversity, for they contain easily accessible street tree diversity that students walk pass daily. This study uses pre/post assessments and a tree observation curriculum grounded in scientific observation practice to understand the everyday and scientific tree observation practice of urban middle school students of mixed socioeconomic status (SES). Specifically, it examined students' abilities to name trees, the specific features of trees students noticed, and the botanical vocabulary they used to describe the trees they pass daily. Participants included 308 intervention students and 265 comparison students (11-14 years old) in six public New York City middle schools. Findings show that without the intervention students could not identify common street trees (oak, maple, honey locust), that they did not notice key tree features like leaf arrangement and shape and that they lacked the botanical vocabulary to accurately describe the features of the trees they see daily. Instead, students mostly differentiated trees by obvious uninformative gross features like overall tree size. Generalised multilevel statistical models of pre/post test results show that the ability to name, notice, and describe trees with botanical terminology improved with the study intervention. Students from medium SES schools had more prior knowledge and showed greater growth in learning than students from low SES schools.

The ability to understand the mental states of other individuals is central to human social behavior, yet some theory of mind capacities are shared with other species. Comparisons of theory of mind skills across humans and other primates can provide a critical test of the cognitive prerequisites necessary for different theory of mind skills to emerge. A fundamental difference between humans and non-humans is language: while language may scaffold some developing theory of mind skills in humans, other species do not have similar capacities for or immersion in language. Comparative work can therefore provide a new line of evidence to test the role of language in the emergence of complex social cognition. Here we first provide an overview of the evidence for shared aspects of theory of mind in other primates, and then examine the evidence for apparently human-unique aspects of theory of mind that may be linked to language. We finally contrast different evolutionary processes, such as competition and cooperation, that may have been important for primate social cognition versus human-specific forms of theory of mind. We argue that this evolutionary perspective can help adjudicate between different proposals on the link between human-specific forms of social cognition and language.

This paper reflects on how the issue of climate change and the general state of our planet is, among other causes, a main factor in the paralyzing divisions ailing Western societies. This situation, while unsettling to democracies, is promoting a kind of education "in" and "through" fear and I question if education can succeed under these circumstances without becoming indoctrination. This paper does not try to diminish the urgency and the importance of current environmental problems but rather expands today's perspectives and incorporates research in more constructive ways of thinking and doing. I use scientific contributions in climatology, evolution, environmental conservation, economics, and neuroscience to bring new light to today's investigations about the human and the non-human world. Finally, I propose Deep Ecology's principles of "deep questioning," "deep experience" and "deep commitment," as a guide for new educational and ecological practices.

Exploring the evolutionary characteristics of higher education studies across the world can provide an auxiliary reference for related research. This study used the metrological literature visualization software CiteSpace to map the co-cited network of eight higher education journals in the Social Science Citation Index, and used the Google Fusion Tables tool to establish the distribution of high-concentration regions in the higher education research worldwide. The purpose was to detect the latter's evolving central themes and central regions. The thematic evaluations showed the phased characteristics of the transition from a macro, to a meso, to a micro study perspective. The regional assessments demonstrated a divergent diffusion trend from an institutional perspective to a national perspective with a diversified center pattern. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and South Africa have become centers in higher education research. The amount of literature published, the frequency of citations, the annual indicator, and the overall influence of a country are important factors influencing the formation of higher education research centers.

Difficulties in understanding evolution are often rooted in early childhood, arising from naïve assumptions and cognitive biases. However, literature reviews mainly focus on school and university students' understanding of evolution, with only limited comprehensive reviews on children in early childhood aged up to 7 years. This systematic review aims to capture precursory concepts in evolution and influencing cognitive biases as documented in the empirical literature. Searches of three databases identified 204 articles, of which 26 were used for further analyses after screening for eligibility. The analyses revealed that even young children are capable of understanding the basic mechanisms of core concepts in evolution, such as variation, inheritance, and natural selection. However, while children's understanding of the inheritance concept has been investigated intensively, their understanding of variation lacks in-depth research despite its probable influence on natural selection. Existing evidence is contradictory concerning the usefulness of children's cognitive biases for learning core concepts in evolution: These can serve as stepping stones for learning evolutionary principles, but their usefulness is questioned if children have already developed scientifically correct explanations. More research is clearly needed concerning the reciprocal effects of children's precursory core concepts in evolution in order to develop effective learning interventions for children.

At present there is a clear distinction between robots and persons. In this article I explore the possibility that this distinction may not hold in perpetuity, as some robots attain personhood. I argue that personhood is an emergent property in both the development of individuals and the evolution of life, that personhood may not require a carbon-based existence, and that, given that robots are being made with ever greater powers of cognition, at some point these powers of cognition may reach the point at which we need to start talking of robots as having minds and being persons. This will have implications for how we treat robots, for how we design robots and for how we understand ourselves and other creatures. There are also implications for moral education that may need to be taken seriously.

"Classic" forest plots show the effect sizes from individual studies and the aggregate effect from a meta-analysis. However, in ecology and evolution, meta-analyses routinely contain over 100 effect sizes, making the classic forest plot of limited use. We surveyed 102 meta-analyses in ecology and evolution, finding that only 11% use the classic forest plot. Instead, most used a "forest-like plot," showing point estimates (with 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) from a series of subgroups or categories in a meta-regression. We propose a modification of the forest-like plot, which we name the "orchard plot." Orchard plots, in addition to showing overall mean effects and CIs from meta-analyses/regressions, also include 95% prediction intervals (PIs), and the individual effect sizes scaled by their precision. The PI allows the user and reader to see the range in which an effect size from a future study may be expected to fall. The PI, therefore, provides an intuitive interpretation of any heterogeneity in the data. Supplementing the PI, the inclusion of underlying effect sizes also allows the user to see any influential or outlying effect sizes. We showcase the orchard plot with example datasets from ecology and evolution, using the R package, "orchard," including several functions for visualizing meta-analytic data using forest-plot derivatives. We consider the orchard plot as a variant on the classic forest plot, cultivated to the needs of meta-analysts in ecology and evolution. Hopefully, the orchard plot will prove fruitful for visualizing large collections of heterogeneous effect sizes regardless of the field of study.

Teaching materials frequently answer objections to evolution by demarcating science from religion. Because definitions of science shaped by demarcation tend to magnify its empirical features, they weaken students' understanding of science's theoretical dimension. Demarcation fails to answer creationism for the opposite reason; by insisting that the observable world is the exclusive domain of science, it undermines the core Abrahamic assumption that nature can make meaningful reference to a divine creator. After exploring how demarcation is employed in a booklet designed to guide educators who address evolution and creationism, the National Academy of Sciences' "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" (2008), I conclude by proposing a more balanced approach for teaching about NOS and creationism. [For a review essay on this article, "Philosophy in the Science Classroom: How Should Biology Teachers Explain the Relationship between Science and Religion to Students?," see EJ1277969.]

This review explores Thomas Lessl's "Demarcation as a classroom response to creationism: A critical examination of the National Academy of Science's "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" (2008)." Lessl's work examines philosophical debates about the relationship between science and religion from the perspective of communication dynamics between science teachers and audiences skeptical about evolution. His essay raises a number of important points that might help educators craft statements that are less likely to alienate religious students and to entrench any pre-existing opposition to evolutionary science. However, in this review, I raise a number of criticisms of Lessl's account of the problems with the approach taken by the National Academy of Science. I argue that many of the criticisms of NAS's approach to demarcation are not well-supported, and even were they to be strong criticisms, they do not justify skepticism toward evolution or science in general. Ultimately, I argue that addressing Lessl's concerns means creating space for more intellectually rigorous and satisfying discussions of science and religion, but this is not appropriate in a biology classroom that merely wishes to introduce evolution. Addressing these concerns requires making more space for philosophy in the curriculum. [For "Demarcation as a Classroom Response to Creationism: A Critical Examination of the National Academy of Sciences' "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" (2008)," see EJ1277970.]

The evolution education experiences of students of color represent an emerging area of research, because past inquiries indicate these students have differential outcomes, such as lower evolution acceptance and severe underrepresentation in evolutionary biology. Religion is often an important support for students of color who are navigating a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics culture that privileges White nonreligious students. For instance, religion helps mitigate the negative effects of racism, but religious students are also more likely to experience conflict when learning evolution. In this nationwide study, we examined the extent to which strong religiosity among students of color can explain their lower evolution acceptance. We surveyed students in 77 college biology courses across 17 states and found that Black/African American students tend to be more religious and less accepting of evolution than any other racial/ethnic identity group and that Hispanic students tend to be slightly more religious and slightly less accepting of evolution than White students. Importantly, we find that religious background is an important factor associated with Black and Hispanic students' lower levels of evolution acceptance. This study suggests that the biology community should become more inclusive of Christian religious students if it wishes to foster inclusive evolution education for Black and Hispanic students.

William Golding has been identified as a nonconformist whose opinions always go contrary to what is customarily accepted or established. This is shown in all his novels, more specifically "The Inheritors", in which he defies long established opinions held by anthropologists, historians, archaeologists as well as many others about the Neanderthals and their immediate successors the Homo sapiens. Though my PhD was about some of Golding's novels, no single word is mentioned in my PhD dissertation about his challenging novel "The Inheritors", which is still regarded by both critics and readership as most complicated. Golding's intention in this novel is not merely to rebut the clichés and stereotypes of the Neanderthals, but also to describe them as enjoying uniquely far sublime qualities that make them outdo their rivals, the Homo sapiens. Therefore, he portrays them very sympathetically, and their plight tragically, thereby demonstrating his scepticism about the moral superiority of the Homo sapiens, the real "inheritors" of the earth. The aim of this article is to discuss Golding's repudiation of such convictions by examining in some detail the novel's thematic structures, characterisation and settings. Likewise, the present article will focus on the clarity of the novel's narrative style that shows the simplicity, if not naivety, of the Neanderthal man's life juxtaposed to the complexity and maturity of his rivals' language and life style.

This article uses U.S. survey data (N = 15,847) to characterize the evolution of student interest in an astronomy career in the period between middle school and the beginning of college. We find that middle school students have a relatively high interest in astronomy, which sharply declines with every phase of their education. However, many of the students who leave astronomy--particularly male students--feed heavily into other STEM disciplines. Through statistical modeling, we find that students who spend extracurricular time observing stars, tinkering with mechanical or electrical devices, or reading/watching science or science fiction are significantly more likely than students who do not engage in these activities to hold an interest in pursuing an astronomy career at the end of high school. We also find that females who observe stars during extracurricular time show a greater improvement in their odds of pursuing astronomy than males do. Furthermore, we find that these out-of-school-time activities are better predictors of astronomy interest than commonly studied academic predictors. We discuss the implications of these findings on future extracurricular programming for students.