Evolution Featured at Tennessee Teacher Conference

Mike Knapp, biology teacher at Hardin Valley High School, sets up a demonstration of his lactose intolerance lab while teachers are in discussion.

Mike Knapp (upper left), biology teacher at Hardin Valley High School, sets up a demonstration of his lactose intolerance lab while teachers discuss.

While socio-cultural forces continue to pressure teachers not to talk about evolution through intimidation and confusing laws, many science teachers remain committed in the face of adversity to helping each other teach their students the scientific consensus of evolution as an important unifying concept in science. A session on how to teach the evolution of the lactose tolerance gene drew 40 middle and high school science teachers and pre-service teachers into a packed room at the statewide Tennessee Science Teachers’ Association Conference last week. The session was jointly supported by NIMBioS and Darwin Day Tennessee.

Discussing the evolution of lactose tolerance with students presents an interesting case because it demonstrates how human culture can be a selective agent of evolution. Also, students can relate to the subject matter personally, since most of the world’s population, mostly people of non-European ancestry, can’t tolerate lactose in dairy into adulthood. Hardin Valley Academy biology teacher Mike Knapp introduced teachers to the lab that he uses with his own students, using cups of milk, Lactaid pills and glucose test strips to learn about the effect of enzymes on breaking down lactose into glucose.

Whitaker Hoskins, a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, co-presented a guided non-fiction reading on lactose tolerance from “Before the Dawn” by Nicolas Wade. Hoskins said interacting with the teachers was the highlight of his session during last week’s conference. He also spoke to teachers about the many events planned for February as a part of Darwin Day Tennessee surrounding Darwin’s birthday, including a day-long teacher workshop on teaching evolution which will be hosted at NIMBioS on February 7, 2015. Look for more details about signing up for this workshop coming soon to the Darwin Day Tennessee website.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) donated teacher packets, videos and books to the teachers attending the session.

This entry was posted in conference, Education/Outreach, evolution, high school, Middle School, STEM, Teachers and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.