Meeting Abstract
Students rarely get opportunities for inquiry-based learning when they study evolution. Most hands-on learning experiences are simulations or involve reviewing data that has already been collected. In this lesson, students examine changes in dimensions of leg bones of mice from four replicate lines that have been selectively bred for high levels of voluntary wheel running. Wheel running can be viewed as a model of human voluntary exercise or of the daily movements that other animals exhibit in nature, so it has relevance for both applied and basic science. As the wheel-running behavior of the “High Runner” lines has evolved across tens of generations, many other changes have also been observed in the mice, encompassing other behaviors, physiology, and morphology. Students develop hypotheses and predictions about how the thigh bones (femurs) of animals that are good runners might be different from those that are not. They develop a protocol for testing their predictions by use of digital photos to measure femurs from generation 11. Measurements can be submitted through a Google form, which populates a spreadsheet that can be shared by the instructor, teaching assistant, and/or the students. This crowd-sourcing of morphometric data can also be used for research purposes, so the students get to participate in real science. The original middle-school version of the lesson, including supporting resources, can be accessed on online at ENSI (http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb /lessons/BornToRun.html) and a peer-reviewed publication is available (Radojcic, T., and T. Garland, Jr. 2014. Born to run: Experimental evolution of high voluntary exercise in mice. Science Scope, Summer 2014, pp. 3-12.). An online lecture giving the experimental background is available (http://idea.ucr.edu/documents/flash/ born_to_run_stem_28_may_2013/story.htm). The procedures are easily scaled for high school or college, and I now use it in the undergraduate evolution course at UCR.
