At the Centre for Evolution, we have developed free resources to make the principles of evolution accessible to everyone. These materials aim to inspire and engage learners of all ages. Lesson plans are available for educators across age groups and educational settings, to help teach the concepts of evolution effectively.
Lesson plans with a fresh view on teaching evolution
Four schemes of work have been created for primary school students, based on unique research in schools to find out what really works when teaching evolution to younger children.
This research found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, teaching evolution and genetics is best done using story books, rather than by doing an experiment, and not by reference to humans. These methods lead to an increased understanding of the concepts and strong positive effects in lower ability students.
Primary school teachers introduced to the programme found that the resources gave them more confidence in teaching evolution and inheritance, with 91% still using all (50%) or some (41%) of the resources.
Each scheme of work includes a four-lesson plan on variation, adaptation, evolutionary timescales, and homology/ common ancestry, to be taught in that order. These follow the “genetics-first” approach, which proved to be highly effective in teaching evolution.
Below are the downloads for Scheme of Work 2 and Scheme of Work 3. Both schemes include consistent lessons 1 and 3, whilst lessons 2 and 4 differ. From these, teachers can produce any of the four possible four-lesson plans. The Centre research found that Scheme of Work 3 was the most successful, followed by Scheme of Work 2.
All necessary resources, such as a main document and optional homework tasks, are included.
Evoscope: a developing educational package for all learning about evolution
Evoscope is an educational package produced by the University of Bath in partnership with the Evolution Education Trust. Created to support educators, it brings evolution to life in real time whilst contributing to research on educational experiences and student understanding.
The resources are designed to inspire and motivate students to explore the subject through hands-on lessons. They are available to support in any educational setting, whether this be primary and secondary schools, museums, learning centres, virtual or home schools, and many more.
As well as educators benefiting from this free resource, they also help the research by allowing the university to explore how different teaching methods impact students understanding of evolution.
To find out more about what is provided in the resource and the science behind it, take a look at the Evoscope page on University of Bath website.