As part of an NSF research grant, summer internships are available for
high school teachers of biology and/or mathematics in the laboratory of
Dr. Michod at the UA.
For more information contact Ms. Elaine Mattes at 520-621-7509
emattes@email.arizona.edu
Stipend is $4,000 for 6 weeks during June and July
with the possibility of renewal each summer.
The intern will be expected to become involved in the experimental and
theoretical research in the lab and to develop a module for use in their
classroom on the evolution of biological complexity.
Our research concerns the evolution of complexity in the context of
evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs), such as the transition
from unicellular to multicellular life. We would like to address the
ongoing crisis in our country concerning the teaching of evolution and
complexity. The most recent opposition to evidence-based biology comes
from proponents of 'intelligent design,' who claim that life is
'irreducibly complex,' and thus cannot be explained by Darwinian
principles. We wish to confront such claims by offering an alternative
framework for the teaching of life's diversity and complexity using ETIs
and the evolution of multicellularity as case studies. Our framework to understand ETIs
involves the concepts of cooperation and conflict, which should provide
a familiar and intuitive framework for students. They are social
individuals and familiar with cooperation and conflict in their lives.
They have experienced how groups may gain new functions through
cooperation, but only if within group conflict is regulated. This
provides teachers with a familiar framework to explain the very
remarkable transitions in complexity during the history of life. The
very idea of cooperation seems at first to be at odds with the Darwinian
program (“nature red in tooth and claw”), but its central role in ETIs
may be explained through the green algae
Volvox
and its relatives.
