Crossing over: the basics of evolution: workbook for teachers

Abstract

The Crossing Over Pilot Teacher Trainer Research Programme (a project of the Human Sciences Research Council) was a week-long course held in Cape Town and attended by 33 teachers from all nine provinces and from rural, urban, private and state schools. As the name suggests, Crossing Over focuses not only the transmission of knowledge from one to another, but also on the shift from one state of knowledge to another. It is also the act that chromosomes perform in the event of mitosis and meiosis. Crossing over is fundamental to change.

This Workbook is the culmination of the content of the pilot course, designed to cover the basic content necessary for teaching the key concepts of comparative functioning, relationships and the development of change, otherwise known as evolution, in molecular biology. The teachers on the course had access to the best that is available in the country both in terms of facilitators and sites, and this Workbook is a compilation of the material developed for the course for the GET (General Education and Training) curriculum and the FET (Further Education and Training) curriculum.