The project, a joint effort of the University of California Museum of Paleontology's Understanding Evolution (UE) and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent, centered at Duke University), is designed to both enhance and assess Evolution in the News, a web-site updated monthly that features cutting edge evolutionary research, the relevance of evolutionary biology in everyday life, and the pervasiveness of evolutionary theory in informing and enabling advances in other disciplines. The site uses a current news item as a jumping off point to showcase an important evolutionary concept, integrating an illustrated article, a multimedia podcast featuring scientist interviews, supporting educational materials, and links to popular and scientific literature. The pilot of this web-site has garnered more than 30,000 page requests during its first month. Features to be assessed with an undergraduate audience include: accessibility of the material, audience appeal, use patterns, and educational effectiveness. See www.NESCent.org/eog/eitn or http://evolution.berkeley.edu
Intellectual Merit: Evolution education is an essential component of a modern understanding of how biological systems at all levels function and interact with one another. Current research indicates that many students hold misconceptions about basic evolutionary concepts and the scientific status of the theory and may additionally perceive evolution as having little relevance to their lives. The Evolution in the News program is designed to provide undergraduate instructors with compelling, up-to-date examples of evolution to use in class that can be easily deployed in a pedagogically sound manner. Assessing the site's effectiveness will add to its intellectual merit.
Broader Impact: This project is designed to promote teaching and learning, reach a broad audience, and contribute to the generation of a more scientifically literate society. The multimedia approach is designed to engage a broad range of learning styles, and have benefits for non-traditional students and non-native English speakers. Distribution of the material via the web takes advantage of technology to transcend geographic barriers, serving both rural and urban groups and making new research in evolutionary biology accessible to faculty at community and teaching colleges, who may have less direct access to those at the cutting edge of the field. By linking easily deployable educational tools with both advanced content and strategies for teaching that go beyond the lecture format, the project provides an opportunity for independent professional development for instructors. However, in order to continually upgrade the effectiveness of any web-site and to engage a broad community in its use, it is necessary to continually assess usage and outcomes of that usage. As more science content continues to be made available online, the formal assessment within this project will continue to contribute to the educational community's understanding of how to effectively leverage web-based media in the classroom, making the classroom potential of these materials more apparent.
