Peer Review

Becoming whales - A lesson on whale evolution

Material Detail page

Bookmark

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This lesson provides confirmation of gradual accumulation of changes linking
certain terrestrial mammal groups with modern whales.
Type of Material:: Lesson plans and resource materials such as bone drawings, maps and timelines
for an instructional sequence about evolution.
Recommended Uses:: This material is appropriate for use with prospective teachers to contrast
inquiry with direct instruction of science in secondary science methods courses.
Technical Requirements:: Adobe Reader for pdf documents.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Evolution as descent with modification.
Target Student Population:: Life science teachers and their students at the middle and high school levels.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Proportional thinking for use of a scale of 1 inch = 1 million years geologic
timeline.

Rating:
Strengths:: This lesson provides confirmation of whale evolution, with multiple independent
lines of evidence showing a series of intermediate forms and gradual
accumulation of changes linking certain terrestrial mammal groups with modern
whales. Evidence comes from DNA, anatomical classification, biogeography,
physiology, and fossils. An extensive list of credits outlines permission to
use primary source materials from the journals Science, Nature, Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology, the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology,
books, and scientists? web resources.
Concerns:: none

Rating:
Strengths:: The main body of this lesson includes Preparation, Procedure, Resources, and
Credits for illustrations in a format for easy printing and copying. The
teaching guidelines outline an instructional sequence following the 5 Es
(Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate) suitable for any secondary
life science classroom. In addition to the core sequence, detailed information
about whale fossils and 9 independent lines of evidence used by scientists to
confirm the evolution of whales are provided. The extra material can be used
with the maps and timelines provided by teams who read and share what they learn
during class discussion, or as extension resources for more advanced or
interested students.
Concerns:: None

Rating:
Strengths:: Detailed teacher preparation and teaching instructions along with black and
white line masters with instructions for students make this detailed lesson easy
to implement.
Concerns:: None

Other Issues and Comments:: The value is scientific evidence from Berta, Blackburn, Conrad,de Muizen,
Gatesy, Gingerich, Gould, Landau, Nikaido, Novacek, Rose, Sutera,
Thewissen, Wells, Wilford, and Zimmer, made available to students. This
lesson as a model can be replicated and extended for instruction that could
address specific natural selection misconceptions such as those documented by
Anderson et. al. (JRST Vol. 39 (10): 952-978, 2002).
Creative Commons: