Avida-ED: Technology for Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science using Digital Organisms

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Interdisciplinary (99) This project is developing Avida-ED, an educational simulation based on a proven artificial life research platform. In the digital environment of Avida-ED, one can observe the evolution of self-replicating, autonomous digital organisms, and perform experiments to test evolutionary hypotheses in ways that no other tool allows. This unprecedented ability to introduce experimental evolution in biology classrooms lets students learn about basic principles of scientific method and see for themselves how evolutionary theory is confirmed. We are developing and testing the Avida-ED environment, formally accessing its pedagogic efficacy in the classroom for undergraduate science and non-science majors, and distributing the software and associated materials to biology educators. The project is addressing significant science education challenges identified in national standards in a novel, rigorous, and promising manner. Our initial results show that by being able to observe the evolutionary mechanism in action, students come to understand the key biological insight of how evolution produces complex information. The intellectual merit of this project is the novel use of information technology - artificial life - that was inspired by evolutionary principles, and has become a revolutionary research tool for biologists. The broader impacts of this project lie in the application of this simulation and the developed materials in a wide range of undergraduate science curricula.