The Nature of Science as a Foundation for Teaching Science: Evolution as a Case Study

Abstract

This chapter presents the approach applied in several inservice institutes for secondary school biology teachers with a focus on evolution and the nature of science. Here we present the rationale, review the pedagogical strategies and several of the lessons, and provide the evidence that the institutes made a major difference in how teachers taught both the science of evolution and the nature of science. In this chapter we will provide sufficient detail so that others can evaluate and adapt our approach in working with inservice and preservice high school teachers. The combination of evolution and the nature of science is particularly effective in addressing many of the core issues within the nature of science. We feel that it is essential to present evolution in the context of the nature of science specifically, to present it as the better choice of those so far proposed for explaining whole classes of facts in biology and anthropology. This allows teachers to emphasize that explanation is the central task of science and otherwise to explain the nature of science and the criteria used in science for selecting among alternative theories. It is important to help teachers and students understand that this exemplifies the nature of science generally. In addition, the teaching of evolution and related topics remains perhaps the single greatest content-related problem that high school science teachers must confront. Since evolution is the central organizing theory for all of biology, this problem is most severe in secondary school biology, but it also affects much of the rest of the science curriculum.