I have a question… and may have the answer! - A book about Evolution
The goal of this project was to produce a book about evolutionary biology based on questions (and answers) from children.
In Portugal, evolution is only taught in the two final years of high school and only to students who choose science as a pre-university major. One way to overcome this lack of formal education of evolution is through educational resources -including books- that present evolutionary concepts in an attractive way. However, such resources in Portuguese are still scarce. Producing a book that explains evolution through simple but accurate answers to questions that are made by the targeted audience engages children, teachers and educators to be interested in and to know more about evolutionary biology.
The project started with a contest open to children aged 5 to 17 years old, where they are invited to think of a question about evolution and then of an answer (questions could be about theoretical aspects of evolution or specific organisms and their features).The collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico allowed extending the contest to Mexican students. A jury of evolutionary biologists selected questions per school year based on their pertinence and on the effort placed on providing an answer. Answers given by children were then paired with answers from invited evolutionary biologists to produce a book, in Portuguese and in Spanish, which will be freely available on the internet. A printed version will be offered to all authors and a digital-only English version will also be made available.
Team
Rita Campos (CIBIO-InBIO)
Collaborators
Rodolfo Salas Lizana (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Rui Faria, José Melo-Ferreira, Sara Rocha, Paula F. Campos (Centro para a GeoGenética, Museu de História Natural da Dinamarca, Universidade de Copenhaga), Ricardo Pereira (Instituto de Oceanografia Scripps, Universidade da Califórnia em San Diego), Gonçalo Espregueira Themudo (CIIMAR-UP, Centro para a GeoGenética, Museu de História Natural da Dinamarca, Universidade de Copenhaga), Ângela Ribeiro (CIIMAR-UP), Leonardo de Oliveira Martins (Faculdade de Biologia, Universidade de Vigo), Álvaro Chaos Cador (Faculdade de Ciências e Centro de Ciências da Complexidade, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Alicia Mastretta Yanes (Centro de Ecologia, Evolução e Conservação, Universidade de East Anglia), Víctor Rogelio Hernández Marroquín (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Alejandra Valero Méndez (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Emiliano Rodríguez Mega (Instituto de Ecologia, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Luis Medrano González (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Juan Carlos Zavala Olalde (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Brian Urbano Alonso (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México), Rogelio Rodríguez (Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México).
Dates
2012-14
Participant Institutions and Partners
CIBIO-InBIO, Museu da Ciência da Universidade de Coimbra e Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade Nacional Autónoma do México
Funded by
European Society for Evolutionary Biology