The lesson began with an unlabeled model of a prokaryotic cell projected onto the board. Students should be seated in groups of four to have partners for think-pair-share and groups for hands-on modeling.A bowl 80 white, six-sided dice and 5 colored dice per group.Video excerpt of PBS case study on Addie’s antibiotic-resistant infection.Video excerpt of TED talk discussing an anecdote of life before antibiotics.This lesson also helps familiarize students with the structure and function of prokaryotic cells. It’s recommended to conduct the lesson at the introduction of a unit on evolution, as antibiotics and related antibiotic resistance fit well in this context. The activity is designed for two consecutive class periods of high school students in a general biology or introductory ecology course. Students will also construct an explanation for the mechanism that creates antibiotic resistance within populations of bacteria (crosscutting concept cause and effect, SEP constructing an explanation). Students will manipulate and revise physical models of bacterial populations being treated with antibiotics (science and engineering practice (SEP) developing and using models). Modeling the process of natural selection contributing to antibiotic resistance will develop students’ understanding of evolutionary principles and target common misconceptions through hands-on interactions. Overall, antibiotic resistance has created an “alarming situation,” and efforts employing a more judicious use of antibiotics are required to delay further emergence of resistant bacteria ( Economou and Gousia 2015). Rampant antibiotic resistance poses distinct threats to our agricultural and farming operations, affecting access to a safe food supply and our environment ( CDC 2019b). Antibiotics are also a commonplace treatment in farm operations, and “6.1 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics sold to US farmers in 2019” ( Dall 2020). Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria threaten medical procedures and treatment of people during surgery, with chronic conditions, after organ transplants, undergoing dialysis, and receiving cancer treatments ( Centers for Diseease Control and Prevention 2019a). An interactive modeling activity allows students to investigate a threat to modern medicine and a modern example of evolution in action: antibiotic-resistant bacteria.Īntibiotic resistance has been a steady occurrence since the original 1928 discovery of the penicillin mold by Alexander Fleming. Teachers need to prioritize inquiry and give students a chance to discover the process of evolution through direct observation and investigation. Envisioning evolutionĮvolution, as it is typically presented, often appears as a theoretical concept, which makes it difficult for students to discover this topic in more meaningful ways. Additionally, schools commonly emphasize microevolutionary mechanisms, but students “still have a poor understanding of processes which operate at the macro level” such as speciation ( Catley 2006). Students rarely notice the impact of individual variation on the process of natural selection and “often view evolution as the adaptation of individuals rather than populations” ( Sandoval and Reiser 2004). Not surprisingly, it is also one of the least understood topics in high school biology, and students often develop many misconceptions about the process. However, the acceptance of this idea is “atypically low for a developed nation,” and although acceptance has been increasing over the past decade, it remains “low in international rankings” at 54% during the years 2019–2020 (Miller et al.
Indeed, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” ( Dobzhansky 1973).Īs such, the biological evolution of a population is one of the “big ideas” in biology, represented by the NGSS disciplinary core idea MS/HS.LS4 (Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity). One explanation addresses this harmony between the unity and diversity in life: Organic diversity is a response to environmental diversity through evolution.
However, within the diversity of life’s varied shapes, sizes, and mechanisms, there exists an underlying continuity of biochemical machinery in forms of RNA and DNA. Biodiversity on Earth is staggering, and ecologists have only begun the enormous task of documenting all the unique species of plants and animals in existence.
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