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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Why Is Evolution Controversial?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students examine the legal side of the teaching of evolution. They study the Scopes Trial and reflect on what it means for a teacher to be denied the right to teach a key scientific concept. In addition, they design their own editorial...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Why Is Evolution Controversial?

For Teachers 11th - Higher Ed
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.
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Lesson Plan
ARKive

Biodiversity and Evolution – Darwin’s Finches

For Teachers 9th - 10th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What Proof is There to Support Biological evolution?

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students 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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Intelligent Design Fumbles; Evolution Still Going Strong

For Teachers 6th - 9th
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.
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Activity
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Reading Primary Sources: Darwin and Wallace

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

WHAT DARWIN NEVER SAW: Evolution, Science, Biology, Natural Selection

For Teachers 7th - 9th
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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Molecular Sequences & Primate Evolution: Amino Acids, Hemoglobins in Evolution

For Teachers 10th - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Time Machine: Evolution, Geology

For Teachers 8th - 11th
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.
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Lesson Plan
Wild Screen

Evolution and Adaptation

For Teachers 9th - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Inherit the Wind

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students 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 research...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Whose "Truth" Is Out There?

For Teachers 6th - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Historical Thinking Matters

Scopes Trial: 3 Day Lesson

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What is Cultural Evolution?

For Teachers 9th - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

They're more evolved that way

For Teachers 6th - 12th
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,...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Theory, Theory, Who's got the theory?

For Teachers 8th - 12th
Students 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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ecology and Evolution

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students 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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

You Have All the Answers

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Learners 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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What a Cosmic Web We Weave

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students 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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Darwinist Dogma?

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students 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.
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Lesson Plan
Historical Thinking Matters

Scopes Trial: 1 Day Lesson

For Teachers 7th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Improbability of Evolution

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students disprove evolution. In this science instructional activity, 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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Mutualism and Co-evolution A study of Flowering Plants and their Pollinators: Biology, Plants

For Teachers All
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Grasping the Idea of Evolution

For Teachers 6th - 12th
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...