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Table 1 From the beginning of 1980s until c2000

From: The Inability of Primary School to Introduce Children to the Theory of Biological Evolution

Gr.

Curricula (objectives–basic content)

Teachers’ textbooks (instructions to teachers)

Pupils’ textbooks

Second

Pupils “comprehend the meaning of adaptation of plants and animals and the relevant concepts”

Adaptation implied

Examples

Examples

Third

“How does a plant… or animal adapt to the environment”

“Pupils should ascertain the way by which animals…adapt to their natural environment…”

Examples

Fourth

“Emphasis in the study of the way of their adaptation to the natural habitat and their struggle for survival,…in the comprehension of evolutional changes due to natural conditions”

“How do animals and plants adapt 1. Pupils should be made to observe characteristic reactions of plants and animals to particular stimuli of the environment and to try to interpret their behavior…”

“How do plants and animals adapt”

1. Example: “Phototropism: Plants in order to find the light are obliged to climb up. Due to this necessity they grow specific organs”

“How do animals and plants adapt”

“Every animal in order to survive reacts to its environment…Thus they manage to comply with the demands of life, i.e., they adapt to their environment”

 

2.“Beginning from the pre-mentioned “characteristic examples-experiments”…the investigation and transfer-application of this cognitive structure is achieved by deduction in examples of adaptation of animals”

2. Examples of “adaptation of animals,” i.e., body shape, shape of beak, etc.

“The different species…adapt their color to match their surroundings so well in order to go undetected by their enemies”

“Why, for what reason, for what purpose” does each animal have characteristic organs?”

Examples of color adaptation

3. Reference also to animals that lived many geological eras ago

3. Dinosaurs, mammoths

The Earth source of goods: The first human interventions…

First humans – first tools, etc.

First humans–creation of tools, etc.

Fifth

Heredity: inherited and acquired characteristics

Acquired characteristics are not inherited

Acquired characteristics are not inherited

Stratums

Fossils

Fossils, pre-historic animals, mammoths, geological eras. “The first to appear on earth were the simple organisms and, gradually, the more accomplished ones”

Fossils

Geological eras

Geological eras

Paleontological findings—bonds between organisms, example

Archaeopteryx

Sixth

Amphibia

Color adaptation

“The phenomenon of the frog adapting its color to match the color of its surroundings is called color adaptation.”

The frog’s color adaptation to its environment

Reptiles

“Millions of years ago, lived on earth animals with a characteristic shape and size”