Building Trees: Introducing evolutionary concepts by exploring Crassulaceae phylogeny and biogeography

Karimi, Nisa; Parks, Brian M.; Rouse, Doug; Martin, Kerry A.; Xiang, Dong; Rajangam, Pulikesi Chittu; Baum, David A.; Heitz, Jean G.

doi:10.24918/cs.2017.16

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Students would use their understanding of phylogenetic trees and molecular evolution to estimate diversification rates and understanding of evolutionary processes to generate biogeographic hypotheses for the species in this group. This exercise is adaptable to any taxon; examples could be drawn from Reed frogs on the Gulf of Guinea archipelago islands or the biogeography of the Crassulaceae family across several African countries and surrounding islands (Karimi et al, 2017). Due to the transferability of concept knowledge, student learning occurs in different organismal contexts but the students are taught to think about the concepts and apply those concepts across different evolutionary scales and across diverse organismal lineages.…”

Section: Teaching Modern Concepts In An Organism-centric Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Learning Strategies for Biodiversity Science

et al. 2022

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Organismal courses are inherently integrative, incorporating concepts from genetics, physiology, ecology and other disciplines linked through a comparative and phylogenetic framework. In a comprehensive organismal course, the organisms themselves are a lens through which students view and learn major concepts in evolutionary biology. Here, we present the learning goals of five core concepts (phylogenetics, biogeography, biodiversity, evo-devo, and key traits) we are using to transform organismal courses. We argue that by focusing on organismal knowledge and authentic examples, students learn foundational concepts and investigate biological hypotheses through the content that is unique to individual organismal groups. By using active learning strategies to teach core concepts, instructors can promote an inclusive classroom designed to engage students from diverse backgrounds and facilitate mastery and retention to test understanding of core biological concepts. This paper provides justification for why organismal biology needs to be kept as part of the biology curriculum, outlines the framework we are using to transform organismal courses, and provides examples of different ways instructors can incorporate active learning strategies and in-class activities in organismal courses in ways that enable their application to further investigation of both foundational and translational sciences for students.

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Section: Teaching Modern Concepts In An Organism-centric Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Learning Strategies for Biodiversity Science

et al. 2022

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“…Therefore, Go Extinct! can serve as a necessary primer on tree-thinking that sets students up for success with subsequent build-a-tree activities, such as lessons existing on CourseSource for algae (26) and Crassulaceae plants (27).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Go Extinct! An Award-Winning Evolution Game That Teaches Tree-Thinking as Students Pursue the Winning Strategy

Marcy

2023

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Evolutionary trees communicate both the diversity and unity of life, a central and important scientific concept, as highlighted by the Vision and Change undergraduate biology education movement. Evolutionary trees and cladograms are diagrams viewed by biologists as Rosetta Stone-like in how well they convey an enormous amount of information with clarity and precision. However, the majority of undergraduates in introductory biology courses find the non-linear diagram confusing and do not immediately understand the tree-thinking central to interpreting the evolutionary tree's branching structure. Go Extinct! is an original board game featuring land vertebrates (i.e., amphibians, mammals, birds and reptiles) and it is designed to engage students in reading this evolutionary tree. Go Extinct! won the Society for the Study of Evolution's Huxley Award for outstanding outreach achievements in recognition for how the gameplay itself incentivizes students to identify clades and common ancestors on a stylized tree. The game can be completed in about 30 minutes, which allows instructors time to give follow-up activity sheets that help students transfer their new ability to read a stylized tree into the ability to read more traditional-looking trees found in textbooks and the literature. Overall, teaching the game, playing the game, and completing the follow-up transfer activity can be completed in a 50-minute section. Each game can serve up to 6 students, which means 3 games can cover a section of 18 students. Go Extinct! provides a fun and effective learning experience that students will remember and may even request to play again.

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Building Trees: Introducing evolutionary concepts by exploring Crassulaceae phylogeny and biogeography

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Active Learning Strategies for Biodiversity Science

Active Learning Strategies for Biodiversity Science

Go Extinct! An Award-Winning Evolution Game That Teaches Tree-Thinking as Students Pursue the Winning Strategy

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