Teaching evolution in high school often means a soft sell.

Twenty-six weeks into Suzanne Black's 10th-grade biology class in a Seattle suburb, she drops the bomb.

Evolution.

Black didn't purposely avoid the word before then, but in 25 years of teaching she's learned to minimize conflict by presenting information about evolution gradually.

Though the principles of evolution underlie biology from genetics to ecology, the religious beliefs of some students can make teaching the topic difficult. Experienced high school educators have learned to get past the controversy by working up to the important concepts and keeping lessons relevant to the students' lives.

Black also trains teachers as part of the HHMI-supported Science Education Partnership, a professional development program for high school teachers based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She and others like her build their case with each day's lesson until the bigger picture forms. Then they let on that they've been teaching evolution. It's like adding shredded zucchini to a homemade chocolate cake. No one knows it's there, and once it's pointed out, people realize it's not at all what they thought.

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“We start with evidence that's based in molecular biology and genetics and slide in the ‘evolution’ word later on,” agrees Ann Findley, professor of biology at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She teaches college students as well as high school seniors and high school biology teachers in an HHMI-supported summer course. “[Some students] have been misled to think it's something else, and they don't see what all the fuss is about.”

The same day Black formally introduced the “E” word, a student asked a question about intelligent design.

“I explained that intelligent design is a religious viewpoint that says that some things are so complex that you can't explain them, and that it's not scientifically supported,” she says. “The kids wanted to know what I meant, and I asked how we could design experiments to test the ideas behind intelligent design. And that was it.”

She adds, “It was great that he asked, because you know 10 other kids were thinking the same thing and just not asking.”

Years ago, Black remembers taking a different tack, with dreadful results. She inaugurated a student teacher with a unit on evolution. “That was a mistake,” she says. “The kids ganged up on her and were literally firing questions at her like, ‘Were you married in a church? How could you do that and believe in evolution?’”

Black's own early attempts were “too textbook,” she adds. “I came across as too confrontational. With high-school students, it has been more successful to present learning experiences that let them construct their knowledge from evidence they can see, hear, touch, and analyze.”

Taking that approach, teachers say, can be the tipping point between keeping high school students interested in science and turning them off for good.

Illustration: Na Kim

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