Rationale
In the beginning of this past school year I asked my students to describe a scientist. The general consensus in each of my classes was that scientists are balding, nerdy men with glasses and lab coats. I then showed them a series of pictures of scientists running the gamut of ethnicity, age, gender, and religious background. I asked them again to describe a scientist, and after some class discussion we eventually decided that a scientist is someone who asks questions about the world, and then searches for answers to these questions through experimentation.
Since science is about asking questions, students in a science classroom must be encouraged to ask questions and be taught how to ask good questions. My experience thus far has been that students initially walk into my classroom reluctant and unsure about how to ask questions. I discovered this during the first unit we covered in biology: evolution. As a first year teacher I wasn't exactly sure how my students would react to learning about evolution, but I expected difficult questions about God and religion, and I was nervous about how to field such questions. Instead, I was met with a more disturbing issue. Not one student questioned a word I said. I asked them why they weren't asking any questions, and they said they didn't have any. I probed further, asking if what I was telling them conflicted with their views about the world, but I received no response. Frustrated, I finally said, "If I told you that grass is neon orange, would you question me then?" A few students shrugged, and one student said "well, I'd call you crazy." I proceeded to go on a rant about unreliable sources and how you have to question everything you read and hear, and how there'd be no such thing as iPods or antibiotics or TVs if people hadn't asked questions and sought the answers to those questions. That was all well and good, but it didn't bring my students any closer to learning how to question the world. This year I want to make a more focused effort to teach my students about the importance of questioning, and teach them how to ask good questions.
Evolutionary medicine is a perfect framework for teaching these skills, as it has a useful body of readily available data, and yet still has so many unanswered questions. Using evolutionary medicine will also be helpful because it is a field of science that students can relate to. As the intersection of evolutionary biology and human health, evolutionary medicine will allow students to ask questions about their bodies, their ancestors, and what it means to be human.
The second component to scientific inquiry is that once you ask a question, you must conduct an experiment. In order to search for answers to their own questions, students must develop the ability to read data. Regardless of where my students go in life, they need to know how to read, create, and analyze data tables and graphs. Graphs are powerful tools for persuasion, and they are used by politicians, advertisers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, and countless other professions. If students can read graphs and tables, they will better navigate themselves through the world and be more aware of when people are trying to manipulate them. In this unit, the content about evolution and health will be woven into graphs for students to analyze. During the labs they will also gather and interpret their own data.
This unit is aligned with many College Readiness Standards in each of the three science strands, including SI 20-23.2 (understand a simple experimental design) and EMI 20-23.1 (select a simple hypothesis, prediction, or conclusion that is supported by a data presentation or a model). It also covers Illinois Learning Standards 11A, 12A.5, and 13B.1. A more complete description of alignment with CRS skills and ISBE standards can be found in the appendix.
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