From Conflict to Common Ground: A Call to Use Cultural Competence in Evolution Education

Students' religious beliefs have been identified as a major barrier to accepting evolution and lack of acceptance of evolution is a challenge for those teaching evolution. This talk will focus on a new instructional framework for teaching evolution called "Religious Cultural Competence in Evolution Education (ReCCEE)" that can increase students' acceptance of evolution, decrease perceived conflict between religious beliefs and evolution, and create more inclusive college biology classrooms.

Liz Barnes, NSF GRFP Fellow in STEM Education and doctoral student in biology and society, is broadly interested in evolution education. Her research agenda includes identifying current instructional practices of evolution educators, identifying what types of instructional practices are helpful or harmful in fostering positive student attitudes towards evolution, and exploring the experiences of religious students in biology classes. Barnes is also interested in ways to improve evolution education research more broadly. 

This presentation is part of the Evidence-Based Teaching in STEM Seminar Series. For more information and coming events, go to: http://links.asu.edu/TeachTech