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

跨学科（99）这个项目正在开发一个基于成熟的人工生命研究平台的教育模拟软件Avida-ED。在Avida-ED的数字环境中，人们可以观察到自我复制、自主的数字生物的进化，并进行实验来测试进化假设，这是其他工具所不允许的。这种在生物学课堂上引入实验进化论的前所未有的能力，让学生们了解科学方法的基本原理，并亲眼看到进化论是如何被证实的。我们正在开发和测试Avida-ED环境，正式在本科科学和非科学专业的课堂上使用它的教学效果，并将软件和相关材料分发给生物教育者。该项目正在以一种新颖、严谨和有希望的方式解决国家标准中确定的重大科学教育挑战。我们的初步结果表明，通过能够观察进化机制的作用，学生们开始理解进化如何产生复杂信息的关键生物学见解。这个项目的智力价值在于对信息技术——人工生命——的新颖运用，它受到进化原理的启发，已成为生物学家的一种革命性研究工具。这个项目更广泛的影响在于这个模拟和开发的材料在广泛的本科科学课程中的应用。

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.