This is the first in a series of five articles describing a national study of general education astronomy students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties with cosmology. In this paper, we describe the process by which we designed four new surveys to assess general education astronomy students' conceptual cosmology knowledge. These surveys focused…

First results from a 20-year survey of science knowledge and attitudes toward science among undergraduates are presented. Nearly 10,000 students taking astronomy as part of a general education requirement answered a set of questions that overlap a science literacy instrument administered to the general public by the National Science Foundation.…

Understanding students' thinking about scientific theories is fundamental to the development of effective instructional strategies designed to foster scientific literacy. We conducted a study to determine student acceptance of important biological theories and to explore the relationships between their acceptance of scientific theories and their…

An anonymous survey instrument was used for a ten year study to gauge college student attitudes toward evolution. Results indicate that students are most likely to accept evolution as a historical process for change in physical features of non-human organisms. They are less likely to accept evolution as an ongoing process that shapes all traits…

Presents a study in which a questionnaire was given to deans at North American medical schools to determine which aspects of evolutionary biology are included in the curricula and the factors that influence this. Suggests that most future physicians should learn evolutionary biology as undergraduates if they are to learn it at all. (Author/NB)

Discusses how evolution and natural selection should be taught in the classroom. Presents a study investigating the effects of a nontraditional curriculum including creation stories on student attitudes toward evolution. Reports that a curriculum with creation stories is more effective in fostering scientific views about evolution. (Contains 22…

The interdisciplinary curriculum of the Hull College of Higher Education is described. A course entitled "Evolution and Prehistory" combines geology with prehistoric archaeology. (Author/SA)

Describes "Biology of Mankind," a first-year biology course offered at the University of New South Wales in which biological principles are taught in the context of the evolution of man in relation to his environment. Outlined are aims, course content, and course evaluation methods. (CS)

Reports on a meeting in China in 1999 that focused on the origins of animal body plans and their fossil records. Discusses the theoretical implications of fossils that preserve internal as well as external structures. (DDR)

Develops activities based on pedagogical research that indicate that student engagement and comprehension are enhanced by methodologies that promote active participation, critical thinking, and an interdisciplinary, contextualist approach to teach evolutionary theory to students in an upper-division, capstone course. Provides critical thinking…

Presents a simulation model approach to the study of evolution. This model combines both practical and theoretical aspects of evolutionary biology course work. The author has used laboratory hardware for this simulation with 20 working groups of students. (HM)

The legal tests that are applied to the issue of state mandates to provide creation instruction in public schools, and the implications of the mandates, are discussed. This issue is compared with other curriculum mandates and requirements to illustrate the difficulty of the problem. (MSE)

Reports on the development of a laboratory exercise that would allow students to explore the concept of genetic drift. Discusses the concept of genetic drift that is coincident with natural selection and that closely models the real world. (DDR)

Politics and science have become too much entangled in the controversy over creationism and the teaching of evolution in the public schools. Political opinion is irrelevant when the scientific principles underlying a particular issue are being discussed. (MSE)

Discusses some principles of biological taxonomy. The evolutionary principle in taxonomy and its limitations, and the difference in evolutionary patterns between plants and animals, are also discussed. (HM)