Early evolution of evolutionary thinking: Teaching biological evolution in elementary schools

Abstract

Background: Evolution is considered the unifying concept in biology and is also a key theory underlying many areas of human knowledge. Teaching evolution from as early as kindergarten allows children to better understand concepts related with the biological world and prevents the development of negative feelings and misconceptions about the theory of evolution. However, evolution is absent from most of the educational curricula in the early school grades, even though some of its central concepts are common contents in the curricula of these initial years. Methods: In the present paper we present a set of activities that can be performed with elementary school students to explore and understand evolution and its impact on biological diversity, while promoting critical thinking and scientific literacy. These activities explore concepts of intra-specific diversity, genealogy and inheritance, natural selection, genetic drift, and systematics, using contexts that are familiar to students, and were articulated with the Portuguese official curriculum. Similar contents are present in elementary school curricula of other countries, namely Brazil, United Kingdom, France, United States of America, Canada, or Mozambique, and therefore the same activities can potentially be used in many different countries. Results and conclusions: Regardless of the complexity of the theory behind these concepts, our experience revealed that using these activities children were able to understand basic evolutionary mechanisms and to apply this knowledge in real case scenarios.