Meeting Abstract

S4-1.4  Friday, Jan. 4  Tree Reasoning in Evolution Education DONOVAN, S.; University of Pittsburgh sdonovan@pitt.edu

Despite the centrality of phylogenetic reasoning to modern biology very little is known about students’ use of trees as a coordinating framework for biological knowledge. Evolution education research has historically focused on natural selection misconceptions and has generally failed to explore the development and implications of students’ understanding of descent from common ancestry. The Tree Reasoning in Evolution Education (TREE) is a project supported by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) designed to redress this oversight through activities in three areas: 1) Synthesizing existing scholarly efforts to characterize students’ understanding of phylogenetics; 2) Developing a conceptual framework for describing and assessing understanding across areas of tree reasoning; 3) Promoting the development and use of curricular and instructional strategies that emphasize tree reasoning across biology instruction. Taken together, these efforts are advancing our understanding of barriers to adopting a phylogenetic perspective, informing future research into student learning about tree reasoning, and providing instructors with high quality resources for improving evolution education.