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A weakness in science education is that we don't often teach the nature 
and process of science. The issue exists even in the absence current 
intelligent design debacle, but it is highlighted all the more now.  By 
nature and process of science, I mean those questions that science seeks 
to answer, how it seeks to answer them, and the limits of the questions 
science addresses.  I don't remember learning any of this "meta" stuff 
in any of my classes, from elementary to college.  It was straight to 
the vocabulary, textbooks, and experiments (and I still turned out to be 
a scientist!). 

Evolution is one of those subjects that easily turns to history lesson.  
As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had the 
pleasure of leaving the lab on occasion to collaborate with an education 
research group.  Jim Stewart and colleagues, in an effort to understand 
how students model scientific concepts, developed a unique approach to 
teaching evolutionary biology.  It involves high school students using 
data to construct evolutionary explanations in a very inquiry-based 
way.  It also emphasizes the nature of science.  

I urge you to check it out.  There are extensive teaching resources 
available for teachers who want to introduce the activities into classes.

An overview:
www.wcer.wisc.edu/NCISLA/Publications/features/Evolution.pdf

The Project:
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/ncisla/muse/naturalselection/research/index.html

Best,
Tinsley

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