Pixel International Conferences

This work presents the design and the results of a learning unit about evolution. The project has been realized in a second year of a technical secondary school in Italy and it was designed after some reflections on frequent misconceptions in the theory of evolution. Specifically, referring to the  recent literature on the topic, the students were asked to answer a questionnaire with eleven statements with a 4-point Likert scale. The results show that there is no association between the theory of evolution and the scientific nature of the theory itself: students do not recognize the evidence, characteristics, predictions and models as parts of the scientific method.  Therefore, a 10 hours learning unit on the evolution - aimed at analyzing it with the tools of the scientific method - has been designed. Particular attention in the construction and evaluation of the activities was given to the observation and the argumentation. Moreover, with regard to naive knowledge and misconceptions, it was decided to select some main points relating to the mechanisms, characteristics and evidences of evolution as scientific theory. With regard to the former, natural selection, speciation and adaptation have been addressed. Then, some work has been done to destroy the ideas that evolution is linear and is aimed at improvement by using fossils and other proofs. The unit was designed and implemented using inquiry-based strategies, brainstorming, laboratory activities and using the flipped classroom in some moments.

Keywords: Evolution, scientific method, argumentation, fossils, adaptation, misconceptions;