TEACHING EVOLUTION IN EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES - TAILORING FOCUS TO CLASS OBJECTIVES

The author teaches three undergraduate geology courses at the University of Tennessee that include components of organic evolution. In each of these courses, evolution is presented differently to mesh with the overriding theme of the course. Geology 102 (Earth, Life and Time) is a basic historical geology course designed as a university general education laboratory science requirement. The dominant theme in this course is the evolution of the Earth System, in terms of physical processes, materials, and biology. Here, the organic evolution is presented as one of many examples of change through time including the evolution of the oceans and atmosphere, crustal evolution, landscape development, and the evolution of isotopic systems. Students are left with the understanding that organic evolution is just one of many ways in which Earth Systems have evolved. Geology 205 (Age of the Dinosaurs) is a university service course designed as a general education non-laboratory science requirement. Dinosaurs are used as a hook to draw students into the course, which explores the scientific method and ways in which data are employed to address scientific questions. Here, organic evolution and the phylogenetic history of dinosaurs from Archosauria through modern birds are the dominant themes of the course. Evolution is treated as the exemplar science upon which scientific methodology is being demonstrated. Students are left with a clear understanding that small changes accumulating over millions of years lead to drastic reorganizations of the tetrapod body plan. Geology 320 (Paleobiology) is a course for geology majors that presents a survey of the types of research being pursued by the paleobiological community. The evolutionary synthesis is taken as fact and its features including methodology for phylogeny reconstruction are presented in great detail. Two laboratory exercises deal directly with evolutionary patterns. In the first, students collect data, run a phylogenetic analysis, and interpret the meaning of the resulting evolutionary patterns. In the second, an evolutionary tree and temporal data are brought to bear on a paleobiogeographic data set. Students are shown that an understanding of the evolutionary relationships has far reaching implications for any question that has an assumption of organic evolution.