Simulating natural selection through performance
Rebecca M. Price Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences)
Discussing evolution can create a tense classroom environment in which both proponents of evolution and creationists react defensively. Using a new mode of instruction
Simulating natural selection through performance
Rebecca M. Price Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences)
Discussing evolution can create a tense classroom environment in which both proponents of evolution and creationists react defensively. Using a new mode of instruction can refocus the timbre of the classroom toward learning. In this exercise, students simulate natural selection through a performance, and students become physically, as well as mentally, engaged in thinking about evolutionary concepts. The simulation begins when all but two students distribute themselves throughout a room and strike a pose; they are the “prey.” The remaining students are “predators” who also tabulate the way frequencies of traits change. The predators and recorders choose a criterion in secret for selecting prey. Every time a predator touches a prey, that prey “dies.” Then, the prey population reproduces. In this model, the population size remains the same, and survivors reproduce by clonin