ORIGINS: HUMANITY, LIFE, AND THE UNIVERSE

With the 80^th anniversary of the Scopes Trial in the summer of 2005, the debate on teaching evolution once again has Kansas at the forefront of the evolutionary controversy. In response to this controversy, Kansas State University established "The Center for the Understanding of Origins" which includes faculty from science, philosophy, english, and education. One of the overarching goals of the center is to increase the public's understanding of evolution both on campus and throughout the state. Because of the misconceptions that many college students have regarding evolution and the basic character of scientific inquiry, the Center developed and piloted a new interdisciplinary undergraduate general education course entitled Origins: Humanity, Life, and the Universe.

The 16-week course was team-taught in the Fall 2005 by faculty from all Center departments and included cosmology, geology, and biology blocks interspersed with relevant lectures in philosophy and english. The elements of the course included interactive lectures, exams, homework, and readings. The course was designed for an undergraduate intermediate level audience and included twenty-one students from all different departments.

Different instruments were used to measure the effectiveness of the course and its impact on student learning. Students were given an anonymous pre-post content and science beliefs survey, university course evaluations were completed and a questionnaire was given soliciting written comments from students regarding their overall experience in the Origins course.

Preliminary results revealed that students enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature of the course and better understood how science, philosophy, and the humanities were influenced by one another. Students struggled with the transitions between the content blocks and the amount of material covered on exams. This was typical for learners who are grasping new, challenging material such as that covered in evolution from the integrated sciences. The perceived student growth in content and science beliefs was encouraging and implied that the goal of improving the conceptions of evolution and basic science inquiry were achieved during the pilot course. Feedback from students will be used to improve the class for the Fall 2006 session.