Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Evolution Readiness
project is working with school districts in Massachusetts, Missouri, and
Texas to introduce fourth graders to the concept of evolution by natural
selection. We provide students with a virtual environment they can
populate with plants (and – coming soon! – animals). When the plants
drop seeds, the new plants sometimes differ slightly from the “parent”
plant, and are adapted to a slightly different environment. Students
conduct virtual experiments to determine which variety of plant lives
best in which environment. Later, they can alter the environment and
observe the effect. If the changes are too abrupt the next generation
will not include any plants that are able to survive in the new
environment and the whole plant population will die. If the changes are
gradual the population will evolve, over many generations, to adapt to
the changed environments.
Find out more about the project
Setup classes and run
activities in our Portal
Participate in our online
course
Researchers from Boston College are assessing students’ content knowledge, scientific inquiry skills, and attitudes toward the nature of science, and comparing them to baseline data gathered last year in the same schools.
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