"Experimental and Investigative Laboratory Courses in Evolutionary Biology"

在过去的二十年里，进化生物学已经发展成为一门充满活力的调查科学，与传染病的起源和生物技术等社会问题具有很强的相关性。进化生物学作为一门科学学科的新兴角色，与在高中限制进化论教学，或质疑进化论思想作为科学的一个有效领域的持续努力形成了鲜明对比。尽管高中和大学的进化生物学教学现在都在努力摆脱这种审查和忽视，但进化论在很大程度上仍然被当作一门理论、辩证的学科来教授，往往似乎只影响理论思想和广泛的概念图景。很少有人把它作为一门与生理学或分子生物学一样具有应用相关性的实验、分析科学来教授。我们建议从两个方面纠正这种情况。首先，我们将开发一个进化生物学的实验调查实验室，该实验室可以作为说明如何在大学水平上将进化论作为一门与社会相关的实验和调查科学教授的“旗舰”。我们还说明了如何用最少的资源和广泛的可能材料来运行这样的调查课程。其次，认识到课程和大学在致力于这样一门重点实验室课程的能力或愿望方面会有所不同，我们还将通过额外开发一个网站，通过互联网分发进化生物学的实验室练习，来刺激作为一门动手科学的进化论教学。目前，还没有这样的资源，我们只知道一本关于将进化论作为实验室课程进行教学的手册。因此，我们将收集、整理和分发可用于丰富讨论部分和实验课的材料。

Over the past twenty years, evolutionary biology has developed in to a vibrant, investigative science with a potent relevance to societal issues such as origins of infectious disease and biotechnology. The emerging role of evolutionary biology as a scientific discipline is in stark contrast to the continuing efforts to limit teaching evolution in high-schools, or to question evolutionary ideas as a valid province of science. While the teaching of evolutionary biology at both high school and college levels is now struggling to emerge from such censoring and neglect, evolution is still largely taught as a theoretical, dialectical discipline that often seems only to impact on theoretical ideas and broad conceptual landscapes. Rarely is it taught as an experimental, analytical science of applied relevance on a par with, say, physiology or molecular biology. We propose to rectify this situation in two ways. First, we will develop an experimental investigative laboratory in evolutionary biology that can serve as a "flagship" for illustrating how evolution can be taught at the college level as an experimental and investigative science that is societally relevant. We also illustrate how such an investigative course could be run with minimal resources and using a wide range of possible materials. Second, recognizing that curricula and colleges will vary in terms of their ability or desire to commit to such a focused laboratory course, we will also stimulate the teaching evolution as a hands-on science by additionally developing a web-site for distribution via the internet of laboratory exercises in evolutionary biology. Currently, such a resource is not available, and we only know of one manual on teaching evolution as a laboratory course. We will therefore gather, collate, and distribute materials that can be used to enrich discussion sections and laboratory classes.