An understanding of the theory of evolution is fundamental to reasoning about life and the natural world. It underpins not just scientific advancement and nature-based solutions, but also public appreciation of the delicacy, intricacy and complexity of life on the planet we call home.
In 2021 we commissioned a study into evolution-related education services and resources within the UK.
The study brought forward some intriguing and actionable observations, but a common thread was that we lack robust data on the effectiveness of the wide range of evolution-based educational interventions that are possible in both formal and informal settings. This data on intervention effectiveness significantly lags state-of-the-art knowledge when compared to educational programmes in coding, mathematics and English literacy.
In response, we launched a new Evolution Education Challenge Fund in June 2022 for the organisations in the EET Partner Network and their partners.
Through this fund, we hope to:
- explore the effectiveness of a range of life-science and natural-history educational interventions
- develop and share evaluation techniques to help gather and analyse impact data in a cost-effective way
- draft a prioritisation roadmap for improving evolution-based education in the UK
We are excited to be partnering with the British Science Association to seed the development of an evidence-based community of practice and take an important step towards establishing the EET Partner Network as the thought leader in evolution and evolution-related education in the UK.
Successful projects will be announced in February 2023.
