Amy Brown Science: Evolution and Classification Warm Ups and Interactive Notebook Pages

Do you love teaching about evolution or dread it?

I am the biggest biology nerd ever, so I love ALL of biology. But I really, really, really love teaching about evolution, followed up with classification. My first year biology students have very poor (and uninformed!!) ideas and knowledge about evolution. For many of them, it is the first time they have been taught about it. Others come with a lot of misinformation.

This makes for such a fun teaching situation! Just for kicks, ask your students about their opinions on the topic of evolution BEFORE you teach them the unit. I am always amazed at their misconceptions and poor knowledge base. When you have finished teaching your unit, ask the students again about their opinions. I love that over the course of a couple of weeks the opinions of many will be changed, and the knowledge level of all has been increased.

And the best part? There is never a dull moment in class. I love the discussion and the questions and the arguing! I love to see the wheels turning in their brains.

Since this material tends to be new for most of my students, I developed a set of 61 warm ups / bell ringers / interactive notebook pages to use during the unit.

There are so many ways to use these pages. I have my students keep a "Biology Warm Up Notebook." It is a perfect way to review and reinforce material from the previous day, and it is a fantastic classroom management tool.

My students come in, grab the warm up and get right to work. By the time I have finished taking roll, answering questions, dealing with the "stuff" that we teachers always have to deal with, my students are settled down and are already hard at work. There are too many pages to be completed in class, so I often use them as homework assignments, and review guides for the unit test.