TEACHING EVOLUTION IN A GENERAL EDUCATION PREHISTORIC LIFE CLASS: ACT IT OUT, DON’T ACT UP

Lecturing can be a poor vehicle for teaching evolution to non-science majors who may feel threatened by the topic. Such students may at best discount material they perceive as threatening or at worst disrupt class with hostile questions or argumentation. The general education Prehistoric Life class at University of North Carolina Wilmington is an evolution-based 100-student course composed of non-science majors, some of whom profess to be creationists each semester. Alternative teaching strategies have proved effective at avoiding potential pitfalls of lecturing about evolution in this setting.

Students are suspicious of evolution in part because it is a complex concept; many have misconceptions about how it occurs and especially about natural selection. Such misconceptions can be corrected by making seemingly abstruse concepts tangible. An effective approach involves students in “acting out” concepts. For example, the process whereby DNA controls development can be actualized by having students pretend to be different nucleotides and team up to build chains of amino acids portrayed by other students. Preadaptation can be dramatized by enacting a scene in which a tetrapodomorph fish uses its lobe fins to pursue prey. To understand how different hadrosaurs evolved varying skull structures, students wearing hats from a vintage collection search for a “date to the prom” based on their head gear. A theatrical approach can also demonstrate the natural selective pressures involved in horse evolution as occasioned by the spread of grasslands; a student portraying an archaic horse with cumbersome (=multi-toed) footwear is easily caught by a student “predator” in a simulated grassland scenario.

This interactive approach maintains interest and helps students better understand and remember what we are studying. Students enjoy having an atmosphere of play in the classroom, which enhances their willingness to invest in course content. Evolutionary concepts become more concrete and less threatening. Student comments on teaching evaluations and in reflection papers indicate the value of this approach, as does an excellent record of student attendance (> 80 – 90% of those enrolled are present daily). Students who “act out” concepts in evolution are less likely to “act up” when studying a topic once thought threatening.