Introduction:
The design of my unit plan is to remodel and restructure the traditional instruction of the evolution unit, designed for most biology classes, to be more relevant and more current to our students’ perspectives.
Science has been difficult for most of our students to comprehend and the expected level they should be. According to the 2023 School Accountability Report Card, out of the 90% of students who have taken the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress test, only 14% either have met or exceeded the science standard. However, looking at the report closely shows that the majority of the students who did not meet the science standards, showed they were “nearly met” with 70% of 11 grade students and 85% of 12 grade students who took the test in 2022-23. When focused on my subject matter (biology), only 4% of all 11 grade students met the standards. This data informs us that between 9th and 11th grade, our students are not retaining the content that is specific to biology. And although both physical and earth science was higher than biology (5.03% and 5.02%, respectively), [science] content is not being retained. My understanding of this is that the content does not relate to our students. A conversation I have had with some previous students is that they do not understand how biology is relevant to them, despite biology [loosely] meaning: the study of life. I want my unit to have a relevant story for my students to understand. Evolution is a difficult subject to discuss and present to a younger audience, due to no current notice of evidence of evolution.
I have been teaching for 3 years now, and I think my intentions as a teacher are as follows: I want to teach these students content material that I believe today’s adults should have learned. I am also a firm believer of showing empathy to all organisms that are not humans. Some of my students who do well, have a basic understanding of organisms and their purpose on this planet. However, those who struggle, have a harder time to connect the contents that I teach and how that relates to their world/community. Because of this, apathy increases in learning and understanding the material. In turn, this affects understanding how ALL living organisms have a purpose in the biome. My evolution unit will try to highlight a potential problem that my students will have to face in the biomedical field by showing evidence of how bacterial diseases continue to evolve and become more resistant to antibiotic drugs. Since minor to severe bacterial diseases affect humans, I am hoping I can stress the importance of innovating and evolving modern medicine to keep up with the evolution of infectious diseases. In doing so, this is how we can have a personal connection. My intention is for my students to understand the importance of evolution, but also to realize that we need to problem solve what we need to do to advance modern medicine.
Before continuing this unit, I feel like it is important to note that this is purely to focus on the concept and evidence of Evolution in a biology class. Although the unit does involve content specific information about genetics and cells (both of which have their own unit structures and content that also needs to be taught to a high school audience), evolution is the main highlight of the unit. Therefore vocabulary, labs, and activities are to reflect the content and evidence of evolution.
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