Evolution of Students' Ideas About Natural Selection Through a Constructivist Framework

摘要

The concept of biological evolution within populations, or geneticchange over time to populations, is a central principle of biologicalscience; "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light ofevolution" (Dobzhansky, 1973). However, national polls show thatover 45% of Americans do not accept the theory of evolution bynatural selection (Quammen, 2004). Moreover, in the debate aboutwhether or not evolution should be taught in schools, we have lostsight of what students really understand about the process of natu-ral selection and its role in evolution