Teaching Evolution in the 21st Century

This two-session course is designed to give you the background and skills you need to counter pressures to present or address religiously based alternatives to the theory of evolution in your science classroom. It features materials developed for the NOVA program "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial."

Course goals include:

• understanding the nature of science and the major concepts and theories in evolutionary biology;
• understanding the legal history of the creationism/evolution issue;
• explaining why intelligent design and other religiously based alternatives to the theory of evolution are not science and do not belong in the public school science classroom; and
• generating strategies for responding to a parent or school board insisting that intelligent design be included in a biology curriculum.