NCSE is represented twice in the latest issue of The American Biology Teacher, published by the National Association of Biology Teachers.
Glenn Branch and Ann Reid's "Laying the Foundation: How Is Evolution Taught in Middle School?" described the results of the NCSE/Penn State survey of middle school evolution educators, published in Evolution: Education and Outreach in 2021. "Improvements in middle school evolution education are on the horizon, thanks to improvements in the treatment of evolution in state science standards," they wrote. "Yet improvements in the treatment of evolution in state science standards are not enough. To realize the potential for improvement in evolution education in the middle school science classroom, these teachers must receive the support they need to teach evolution effectively."
And Glenn Branch also reviewed Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's The Magic School Bus Explores Human Evolution (2021), starring the beloved if eccentric elementary science teacher Ms. Frizzle. The review concluded, "Asked in 2019 by PBS Newshour why she and Degen wanted to write a book about evolution, Cole replied, 'A famous scientist [Theodosius Dobzhansky, writing in The American Biology Teacher] once said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." That really means that evolution is the story of life on Earth.' For anyone wanting to share that story with young readers, The Magic School Bus Explores Human Evolution will be a splendid start."
The whole issue of The American Biology Teacher is devoted, as usual for the February issue, to evolution, and the contents are freely available.
