Improved “Origami Bird” Protocol Enhances Japanese Students’ Understanding of Evolution by Natural Selection: a Novel Approach Linking DNA Alteration to Phenotype Change

Abstract

Many studies of evolution education have attempted to develop teaching materials on natural selection because of its importance in the evolutionary process (Lauer 2000; Heim 2002; Catley 2006; Kalinowski et al. 2006; Christensen-Dalsgaard and Kanneworff 2008; Frey et al. 2010). However, to our knowledge, no teaching material effectively connects DNA sequencing to the process of natural selection, although current evolutionary biology is closely linked to molecular biology. Current educational content must be modernized to advance evolution education (Hills 2007). Japanese people easily accept evolution as a fact when compared to people in other countries, especially the U.S. (Sakura 1998; Miller et al. 2006). However, there are some problems in evolution education in Japan, such as using textbooks with outdated scientific theories and a lack of teaching material. These textbooks often cite outdated theories (Shimada 1997, 2004; Nakai 2004), offer a shortage of examples of microevolution (Yamanoi 2008), and include an inaccurate definition of mutation (Yamanoi and Sakura 2010). Fewer teaching materials for evolution have been developed in Japan than in the U.S. and the UK and are hardly introduced in Japanese biology textbooks, particularly for evolutionary mechanisms such as natural selection (Sato and Ohshika 2005). Misconceptions about evolution among high school students are also reported in certain studies. Even after studying evolution, many students fail to understand modern evolutionary concepts, such as linking genes to phenotype, and they mistakenly hold Lamarckism and orthogenesis to be the evolutionary mechanisms (Yamanoi 2008; Fukui 2000; Yamanoi 2010). These misconceptions may be derived from inadequate understanding of the random process in the evolutionary mechanism (Garvin-Doxas and Klymkowsky 2008). We believed that if the students regard mutation as random, not a purposely designed process, then they will disregard Lamarckism and orthogenesis since both ideas assume evolution as a progressive, teleologically designed process. Biology education based on the new Japanese national curriculum framework, the course of study (CS), and its guidelines for secondary school will begin in high schools in 2013. One of the main educational goals in the CS is to relate evolutionary biology to molecular biology (Ministry T. Yamanoi Hakuoh Ashikaga Senior High School, Tadaki-cho1067, Ashikaga, Tochigi 329-4214, Japan