Phylogenetic Analysis: How Old are the Parts of Your Body?

Abstract

According to the National Academy of Sciences, biology students in the USA are not being adequately prepared for successful futures. Of paramount concern is a lack of sufficient training in quantitative and computational skills, which are needed to compete effectively for an array of educational and occupational opportunities. In this paper, we introduce a classroom exercise that invites students to solve a simple biological problem and illustrates the need for a computer-assisted strategy to arrive at a solution. The exercise invites students to consider the question "How old are the parts of your body?" Some features of the human body are more ancient than others. For example, our bodies have both hair and backbones, but backbones arose much earlier in evolutionary history. Our exercise relies upon MEGA 4.0, a free, visually appealing, and intuitive computer program that allows students to gather DNA or protein sequences from electronic databases, then use them to infer phylogenetic trees. Student-inferred phylogenies are used to explore the relative order in which diverse aspects of the human form evolved. In the process, students are trained to use powerful features of MEGA and encouraged through group discussion to consider additional applications of the technology they have learned. Our lesson plan includes a brief video, a web site with essential terminology and links for further exploration, a hands-on experience using MEGA, and a follow-up discussion.

Accepting, understanding, teaching, and learning (human) evolution: Obstacles and opportunities

“…We have the ultimate personal yet global narrative at our pedagogical hands; we tell the scientific story of the deep origins of every single person alive on the planet today. Our evolutionary history joins us to all organisms on the tree of life, and that legacy can be shown in classroom activities that explore the diverse depths of time at which our shared adaptations with other organisms originated (Kuzoff et al, ; Kumala, ) and our genetic relatedness to other apes (Maier, ). We must capitalize on the fact that no evolutionary lineage generates more interest than our own by creating lessons about famous hominin fossils like “Lucy” (Senter, ) and teaching students how much information we can learn from hominin partial skeletons, fragmentary fossils, or even single teeth (Varlese, ).…”

Exploratory Activities for Understanding Evolutionary Relationships Depicted by Phylogenetic Trees: United but Diverse

“…Additionally, research indicates that student performance and conceptual understanding increases in classes that incorporate inquiry-based instruction (Minner et al, 2010;Freeman et al, 2014). In particular, the integration of webbased resources allows students to gather up-to-date information in virtually any subject area and become actively engaged in the learning process through exploration (Kuzoff et al, 2009;Satterthwait, 2010). Particularly among contemporary students who have grown up in a technology-driven world, the use of online resources has the potential to enhance classroom activities and invigorate science education (Mistler-Jackson & Songer, 2000;Jang, 2009;Kuzoff et al, 2009).…”

“…In particular, the integration of webbased resources allows students to gather up-to-date information in virtually any subject area and become actively engaged in the learning process through exploration (Kuzoff et al, 2009;Satterthwait, 2010). Particularly among contemporary students who have grown up in a technology-driven world, the use of online resources has the potential to enhance classroom activities and invigorate science education (Mistler-Jackson & Songer, 2000;Jang, 2009;Kuzoff et al, 2009). We capitalized on the wealth of online bioinformatics resources to develop a series of inquiry-based activities aimed at improving students' tree-thinking skills.…”

Evolution in Biology Education: Sparking Imaginations and Supporting Learning

“…There are interesting lab (Kuzoff et al 2009;Smith and Cheruvelil 2009) and course activities and demonstrations of the use of technology to explore evolutionary concepts (Speth et al 2009;Abraham et al 2009). The regular column from Understanding Evolution describes a collection of classroom ready examples of current evolutionary research (Thanukos 2009).…”