What Darwin Never Saw
In accordance with the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Project 2061 Guidelines, the What Darwin Never Saw Teacher's Guide addresses the following Benchmarks for Science Literacy. By the end of the following benchmark grades, students should know that/be able to:
Grades K-2
Describing things as accurately as possible is important in science because it enables people to compare their observations with those of others. (page 10)
Some events in nature have a repeating pattern. (page 67)
Change is something that happens to many things. (page 72)
Plants and animals have features that help them live in different environments. (page 102)
There is variation among individuals of one kind within a population. (page 107)
Different plants and animals have external features that help them thrive in different kinds of places. (page 123)
Draw pictures that correctly portray at least some of the features of the thing being described. (page 296)
Grades 3-5
Scientists' explanations about what happens in the world come partly from what they observe, partly from what they think. Sometimes scientists have different explanations for the same set of observations. That usually leads to their making more observations to resolve the differences. (page 11)
Doing science involves many different kinds of work and engages men and women of all ages and backgrounds. (page 14)
Heat energy carried by ocean currents has a strong influence on climate around the world. (page 69)
Changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful. (page 116)
Individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing. (page 123)
Keep a notebook that describes observations made, carefully distinguishes actual observations from ideas and speculations about what was observed, and is understandable weeks or months later. (page 293)
Use numerical data in describing and comparing object and events. (page 296)
Grades 6-8
If more than one variable changes at the same time in an experiment, the outcome of the experiment may not be clearly attributable to any one of the variables. (page 12)
Some changes in the earth's surface are abrupt (such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions) while other changes happen very slowly (such as uplift and wearing down of mountains). The earth's surface is shaped in part by the motion of water and wind over very long times, which act to level mountain ranges. (page 73)
Small differences between parents and offspring can accumulate (through selective breeding) in successive generations so that descendants are very different from their ancestors. (page 124)
Individual organisms with certain traits are more likely than others to survive and have offspring. Changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species. (page 124)
Locate information in reference books, back issues of newspapers and magazines, compact disks, and computer databases. (page 297)
Grades 9-12
From time to time, major shifts occur in the scientific view of how the world works. Change and continuity are persistent features of science. (page 8)
No matter how well one theory fits observations, a new theory might fit them just as well or better, or might fit a wider range of observations. In science, the testing, revising, and occasional discarding of theories, new and old, never ends. (page 8)
Sometimes, scientists can control conditions in order to obtain evidence. When that is not possible, for practical or ethical reasons, they try to observe as wide a range of natural occurrences as possible to be able to discern patterns. (page 13)
The variation of organisms within a species increases the likelihood that at least some members of the species will survive under changed environmental conditions, and a great diversity of species increases the likelihood that at least some living things will survive in the face of large changes in the environment. (page 105)
Human beings are part of the earth's ecosystems. Human activities can, deliberately or inadvertently, alter the equilibrium in ecosystems. (page 117)
Natural selection provides the following mechanism for evolution: Some variation in heritable characteristics exists within every species, some of these characteristics give individuals an advantage over others in surviving and reproducing, and the advantaged offspring, in turn, are more likely than others to survive and reproduce. The proportion of individuals that have advantageous characteristics will increase. (page 125)
Natural selection leads to organisms that are well suited for survival in particular environments. (page 125)