TABLE 1.

Statements for first day’s activity.

Statement	Follow-Up Discussion Questions and Starters
1. Evolution is a theory about the origin of life.	What is the scientific versus lay definition of theory? Evolution does provide evidence for possible origins of life, but a larger portion of evolution focuses on how the diversity of life forms on earth developed.
2. Evolution is striving toward higher forms of life on earth.	Evolution is not goal orientated. Nature cannot make choices.
3. Because evolution is slow, humans cannot influence it.	In what ways have humans influenced evolution? In medicine? In agriculture? In domestication?
4. Individual organisms adapt and change to fit their environment.	There are at least two problematic issues with this statement. What are they? What is the scientific versus lay definition of adapt? Evolution works at the population, not individual, level.
5. Humans are currently evolving.	Do you know of any examples of human evolution? Share examples of human evolution (e.g. increased abundance of sickle-cell anemia in populations with a high-risk of Malaria).
6. Evolution is a result of random events.	What types of random events can cause evolution? What types of non-random events can lead to evolution?
7. Evolution can occur quickly.	What types of events would cause evolution to occur quickly? Provide students with a hypothetical situation and have them predict how various events could lead to rapid evolution. (For example, a hurricane destroys the majority of a population of birds; the remaining population has a low level of diversity. How would future generations of the birds compare with previous generations?)
8. Genetic drift does not occur in large populations.	Define genetic drift. How would the effect of genetic drift influence small populations compared with large populations?

Statements were modified from the University of California-Berkley’s Understanding Evolution: Misconceptions about evolution website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php. Some of the misconceptions were restructured to represent accurate biological statements, whereas others were left in their original form.