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Public Outreach & Conservation

Our lab is engaged in outreach in several areas including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and conservation of endangered sticklebacks.

EVOLUTION

Public understanding of evolution is of increasing importance because of the fundamental role evolution plays in many environmental and health problems that face our society. For example, evolutionary principles can inform public policy decisions in medicine, agriculture, conservation, and global warming. It also informs basic and applied research in these areas. Moreover, making sense of the human genome is impossible without evolutionary biology. Scientists in many fields are realizing the importance of evolution to their work. Despite its fundamental importance, evolution is widely misconstrued and mistrusted by the public. This hampers scientific progress and undermines public policy efforts. Our lab is engaged in improving public understanding of evolution through public outreach and teacher training. Our efforts have taken many forms. Below is a selection of some of our most recent activities.

Darwin Day
The UW Madison evolution community hosts an annual event to celebrate the birth of Charles Darwin. Our objective for Darwin Day activities is to increase public understanding of evolution. Our lab has been involved in Darwin Day activities over the last 2 years.

2007: Evolution Matters
Public presentation - Irreducible complexity and the evolution of the vertebrate eye.

This talk by Elliott Sober & Jenny Boughman laid out the counter arguments to the idea that complex organs cannot have evolved but must have been created by an intelligent designer. By way of example, we showed how evolution elegantly explains the evolution of the vertebrate eye. We emphasized three principles: 1) how complex organs do not arise all at once, but are built by modifying existing structures, 2) that each stage is advantageous to its bearers, and 3) evidence for broad sharing of the building blocks (genes) that produce eyes.

Interactive exhibit - Why are females choosy? Why are males showy?

Members of the Boughman lab presented an interactive exhibit that was geared at children of all ages, and adults. It used games and simulations to teach concepts of sexual selection, including sexual dimorphism, differential parental investment, mate choice, and elaboration and evolutionary change of male mating traits under the action of female choice and predation.

Radio interview - University of the Air.

Bret Payseur (Genetics) and Jenny Boughman were interviewed on evolution and religion for this Public Radio show.

2006: Updating the Evidence
Panel discussion - A panel of UW faculty took questions from the audience on any aspect of evolution, including evolution and religion.

Panel members:
Jenny Boughman - evolutionary & behavioral ecology
Jim Crow - population genetics & molecular evolution
Jeff Hardin - developmental biology
Ron Numbers - history of science & religion

Developing instructional materials for teachers
To improve teacher understanding of evolution and provide instructional materials, grad student Genny Kozak worked with Jessica Wood, a graduate student from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, in a course taught by David Baum (Botany) and Jim Stewart (Curriculum & Instruction) on the Effective Teaching of Evolution. They developed activities to explain the rapid evolution of threespine sticklebacks in nature. They focused on teaching two principles. First, that fitness is determined by environmental conditions. Second, that different selective pressures arising from different environments have led to phenotypic differences between populations.

 

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

Teaching minority students & teachers in the PEOPLE program
The Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) is a summer science inquiry course for minority and underserved high school students and their teachers, run by the Center for Biology Education (CBE). RA Jen Hutchens taught animal behavior in this program. She developed lectures and lab activities to illustrate the scientific method, and to introduce students to topics in animal behavior like mimicry, communication, sociality, and sexual selection.

 

CONSERVATION

Conservation of endangered sticklebacks
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, our lab is contributing to this conservation effort. We have several research projects designed to identify causal factors in the loss of the endangered species pair in Enos Lake. We are working on research questions identified as urgent priorities by the stickleback recovery team, and we communicate our research plans and findings to them to facilitate recovery efforts. In so doing, we hope to ensure that these enigmatic fish will be around in future generations. Sticklebacks are prized evolutionary and behavioral models. Their disappearance would be a serious loss to the scientific community, and to the diversity of life on our planet.

 

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