I don't remember "learning" evolution in school.

[Kire]

Which class would I have "learned" it in?

Edit: BTW, mine was a public school.

[AngryAmish]

1. Biology

[ComerPerro]

4. My biology/zoology (had him for both classes)

hardly even mentioned it.

[Kire]

5. Not Paleontology?

[KarenInMA]

9. That's not a HS class.

[Tims]

54. Evolution is biology.

I don't remember who said it but the phrase "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"(or something like that) reflects the importance of evolution to the study of all biological processes.

Paleontology confirms evolution, but evolution is primarily one of the two major foundations of modern biology (the other is genetics).

[ComerPerro]

2. Exactly, and I was in high school six years ago

[AngryAmish]

13. Learned it in Catholic HS in the 80s

I grew up in a fairly affluent area. The parents would have lynched the principle if we were not taught evolution. (BTW, evolution was not on the shit list with the RCC for a long time. Last Pope even wrote a paper saying it was not incompatable with the faith.)

[KarenInMA]

3. Biology, I think

But you probably were too busy looking out the window, dreaming about the girl (or boy) in front of you, or passing notes to remember.

I know I was.

[Kire]

12. I remember screaming at my chemistry teacher...

...because she let some of the "popular girls" out early so they could get fitted for the prom and not the rest of us who had a prom to go to that night.

And I do remember being woken up by my biology teacher long after the bell had rung.

I didn't do drugs in high school, I swear. That wasn't until college.

[bryant69]

6. I learned it

That it existed at any rate. My actually understanding of it was pretty limited.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[formerrepuke]

7. Nor do I; it should have been in biology. I learned what I know from the

writings of Stephen J. Gould. Most science teachers were content to stick to definitions of things, not how they came to be.

[Beaverhausen]

8. I learned it in Science in elem. school and later in Biology

[Kraklen]

10. Biology.

Colleges assume that you've been fully instructed regarding evolution in high school when they admit you.

If you didn't learn about it your school fucked up. Either because they were incompetent or because they were afraid of reprisals.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. I have a stronger memory of

reading Inherit the Wind than I do of learning about evolution.

[displacedtexan]

19. Me, too!

The Darwin mural was on the wall in Bio class, but I never paid any attention to it. I just memorized the facts, got an A, and moved on. I had been an atheist since the Santa Claus revelation.

In college, it was actually the required religion classes that put everything into perspective. Way to go, TCU! I ended up with a minor in religion, BTW. I found it fascinating that one of the world's biggest corporate entities was the church.

[tridim]

14. We actually got to have a debate on evolution vs. creationism

in Jr. high biology. It was about a 30 to 1 ratio supporting evolution. The religious freak in class ended up crying.. She got spanked, hard. I doubt they would let that happen any more.

[Kire]

16. The meek will inherit the earth...

...only after they graduate Junior High.

[Kraklen]

17. LOL

What did she get spanked for?

[tridim]

21. For being a brainwashed religious nutball

and ultimately having no proof of anything except, "It's in the Bible!"

[FreedomAngel82]

25. Exactly

Every religion has their "this is how the world began" story. In Genesis one all Creationism is is God said to let this happen and it did supposivley. I personally believe in God and as creator but can you prove God exists? No. Can you prove he doesn't? No. That's why it's called faith. Just because a religious book called the "Holy Bible" says something doesn't mean everybody will believe in it. I'm sure the Qu'ran has their own "this is how it began" story. If you can prove Creationsim exists then you can prove God exists and last time I looked you can't. For all we know Christianity can be wrong about everything. That's why it's called faith.

[Kraklen]

43. You mean spanked figuratively?

As in she got trounced in the debate?

Or literally got paddled by the teacher?

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

15. Science class in Elem. School, then AP biology in HS

Plus my parent's subscriptions to Scientific American, National Geographic and medical/science periodicals.

Fortunately, I will make sure my children have the same foundation in science and hope that the ID student who waits on them at Burger King can at least get their order correct at the drive thru window.:P

[JitterbugPerfume]

18. I do not recall learning the Theory of Evolution in school

in the late 40s and 50s

Most of what I know I accomplished long after I was through with school

reading

[trixie]

20. ???

If you learned biology and classification of animals and plants then you were being taught evolution. In my school in the late 60s and 70s we were taught heavily in science and evolution.

[FreedomAngel82]

22. I was thinking about this last night

I took biology twice and one of the classes was an advanced biology class and the teacher never talked about the Big Bang theory or anything like that. At least not to my memory and I've been out of high school since 2001. :shrug: Oh and I also wanted to add I was surprised since the teacher was a big biology type person. I don't know about the other teachers though (there were three teachers who taught biology and one who taught chemistry).

[Dr Fate]

26. "Big bang" is more cosmology than biology.

Biology should be more concerned with genetics & how different species came about than the big-bang theory.

[Dr Fate]

23. Many teachers are afraid to teach it- so they skirt around it.

I dont remember being taught evolution in any meaningful way either.

I became interested in it and learned it on my own in my 20s.

[FreedomAngel82]

27. I do remember

looking at plants and we had to memorize the periodic table. I did okay with that. Of course now days only thing I know is lead since someone in my chemistry class taught a little trick to remembering it. Heh heh. I haven't had any type of science in college yet. I mostly have all my writing and math done.

[Igel]

24. It popped up in 7th, 8th grade

general science.

And in ninth grade biology is followed not long after spontaneous generation. Sort of a way to make sense of the nasty taxonomy we had to learn, and then a bit more on evolution proper.

Then we had to read some Gould in freshman comp in college, oddly enough.

[LeftyMom]

28. According to CA science standards, grades 2-4, 6 and 7, plus HS classes

2nd Grade

2. Plants and animals have predictable life cycles. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know that organisms reproduce offspring of their own kind and that the offspring resemble their parents and one another.
2. Students know the sequential stages of life cycles are different for different animals, such as butterflies, frogs, and mice.
3. Students know many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents. Some characteristics are caused or influenced by the environment.
4. Students know there is variation among individuals of one kind within a population.
5. Students know light, gravity, touch, or environmental stress can affect the germination, growth, and development of plants.
6. Students know flowers and fruits are associated with reproduction in plants.

3rd grade
Life Sciences

3. Adaptations in physical structure or behavior may improve an organism’s chance for survival. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know plants and animals have structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction.
2. Students know examples of diverse life forms in different environments, such as oceans, deserts, tundra, forests, grasslands, and wetlands.
3. Students know living things cause changes in the environment in which they live: some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, and some are beneficial.
4. Students know when the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce; others die or move to new locations.
5. Students know that some kinds of organisms that once lived on Earth have completely disappeared and that some of those resembled others that are alive today.

Grade Four

2. All organisms need energy and matter to live and grow. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know plants are the primary source of matter and energy entering most food chains.
2. Students know producers and consumers (herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers) are related in food chains and food webs and may compete with each other for resources in an ecosystem.
3. Students know decomposers, including many fungi, insects, and microorganisms, recycle matter from dead plants and animals.

3. Living organisms depend on one another and on their environment for survival. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know ecosystems can be characterized by their living and nonliving components.
2. Students know that in any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
3. Students know many plants depend on animals for pollination and seed dispersal, and animals depend on plants for food and shelter.
4. Students know that most microorganisms do not cause disease and that many are beneficial.

Grade Six

Ecology (Life Sciences)

5. Organisms in ecosystems exchange energy and nutrients among themselves and with the environment. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis and then from organism to organism through food webs.
2. Students know matter is transferred over time from one organism to others in the food web and between organisms and the physical environment.
3. Students know populations of organisms can be categorized by the functions they serve in an ecosystem.
4. Students know different kinds of organisms may play similar ecological roles in similar biomes.
5. Students know the number and types of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and on abiotic factors, such as quantities of light and water, a range of temperatures, and soil composition.


Grade Seven

Genetics

2. A typical cell of any organism contains genetic instructions that specify its traits. Those traits may be modified by environmental influences. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know the differences between the life cycles and reproduction methods of sexual and asexual organisms.
2. Students know sexual reproduction produces offspring that inherit half their genes from each parent.
3. Students know an inherited trait can be determined by one or more genes.
4. Students know plant and animal cells contain many thousands of different genes and typically have two copies of every gene. The two copies (or alleles) of the gene may or may not be identical, and one may be dominant in determining the phenotype while the other is recessive.
5. Students know DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic material of living organisms and is located in the chromosomes of each cell.

Evolution

3. Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know both genetic variation and environmental factors are causes of evolution and diversity of organisms.
2. Students know the reasoning used by Charles Darwin in reaching his conclusion that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution.
3. Students know how independent lines of evidence from geology, fossils, and comparative anatomy provide the bases for the theory of evolution.
4. Students know how to construct a simple branching diagram to classify living groups of organisms by shared derived characteristics and how to expand the diagram to include fossil organisms.
5. Students know that extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient for its survival.

Earth and Life History (Earth Sciences)

4. Evidence from rocks allows us to understand the evolution of life on Earth. As a basis for understanding this concept:
1. Students know Earth processes today are similar to those that occurred in the past and slow geologic processes have large cumulative effects over long periods of time.
2. Students know the history of life on Earth has been disrupted by major catastrophic events, such as major volcanic eruptions or the impacts of asteroids.
3. Students know that the rock cycle includes the formation of new sediment and rocks and that rocks are often found in layers, with the oldest generally on the bottom.
4. Students know that evidence from geologic layers and radioactive dating indicates Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old and that life on this planet has existed for more than 3 billion years.
5. Students know fossils provide evidence of how life and environmental conditions have changed.
6. Students know how movements of Earth's continental and oceanic plates through time, with associated changes in climate and geographic connections, have affected the past and present distribution of organisms.
7. Students know how to explain significant developments and extinctions of plant and animal life on the geologic time scale.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/scmain.asp

Evolution should be a seamless part of the science curriculum, not a unit that comes up in high school biology and is never related to the rest of the curriculum. I'm hoping that seamlessness was why you don't recall evolution instruction in school, rather than ommision of the concept. In addition, evolution may come up as a tangent to other subjects for example relating the evolution of life on earth to layers of sediment and fossilization in a discussion about Geology or the current theories about the evolution of early man in a unit about human origins in History class.

[Solly Mack]

29. It was taught in my elementary school

as well as middle and high schools..

all public...and in Georgia, no less.

For me, the teaching of evolution was...

... a building block technique, where you teach small aspects of evolution geared toward grade level and understanding, and the blocks came together, to form steps, and got all tied in together by the time you reached the higher sciences...and the steps keep growing

That's how I learned.

for example of how it was introduced in grade school:

you start with a single animal and show it's changes through the years...like horses...horses evolved over the years

Go on to how some animals died out

and it went from there...

Life sciences- biology, chemistry, botany, ecology, etc.... (and even philosophy and history as well)



I entered school in 1968.

[julialnyc]

30. jr high and freshman high school

biology

[trixie]

31. I think the difference is...

that they didn't have to yell "evolution" it was called science. Today with creationism turning into pseudo-science you have to differentiate.

[julialnyc]

47. we learned different theories

but they were all scientific (The G word was never involved)

[nyhuskyfan]

44. I took an anthropology class in 9th grade

It was at a private school, though. Best class I ever took.

[julialnyc]

48. me too

also in private school (in a blue state)..... quite sad if that's why we got a straight forward education

[jokerman93]

32. I read Origin of Species in seventh grade.

of course I didn't understand allot of it really, but the ideas about natural selection and change toward greater complexity and capacity for survival shaped my outlook on the world for many years.

I see no evidence of it in the social/intellectual arena these days though. Sadly, it's obvious now I over extended myself philosophically.

*sigh*

;-)

[etherealtruth]

33. I am "kinda" on the old side ...

...I learned about evolution in the 70's (biology).

I wonder if there are significant regional differences (I have no doubt there are, but it would be interesting to see)

[heidler1]

36. When I was in the 5th grade a woman teacher casually mentioned

evolution as something that some people believed in. She said that they believe that man evolved from animals. I remember thinking my God that makes more sense than anything I'd ever heard before. Out of about 30 kids it seemed to me no one else paid any attention. This happened in a small town of 850 people in western South Dakota in 1936. About that same time I decided going to school was a waste because they avoided the truth.

[etherealtruth]

38. Very cool and very interesting n/t

[heidler1]

45. The lack of truth in *'s thinking process is extremely harmful.

I have one son who at about 10, he is now 54, he was so adverse to lies that he refused to write his spelling words into sentences unless there was at least some element of truth in the sentence.

There is no way that * can make up for this using some chant like "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" when he has no ability or intention in making NCLB function. For damn sure not with another lie about about how we all got here.

[hootinholler]

49. Evolution: Jr. High Science.

Graduated HS in 78 S.W. Pa.

-Hoot

[etherealtruth]

50. Graduated (HS) in 1980 ...

... there was no debate, at the time ... we were taught evolution in science classes. (1970's Metro Detroit)

20 years later in Virginia (beyond the beltway) my oldest child's teacher told him, "everything I need to know is in the bible ... "

[hootinholler]

52. No shit?

How far outside the Beltway? I work near Dulles airport.

-Hoot

[etherealtruth]

55. Owned a house in Fredericksburg ...

... actually Spotsylvania County. Lived in Alexandria while the house was being built.

Oh, yes the folk in Fredericksburg were big believers in creationism and religious fundamentalism ---- needless to say, I was happy to leave.

Delaware, back to Michigan ---- VA was the only place that discussed creationism (or one of it's faces) in schools.

[blogslut]

34. All throughout my school years.

I was so lucky. I had great science and biology teachers. They loved their respective subjects and challenging us. Those kinds of teachers are so rare these days.

I graduated high school in 1978.

[Broken_Hero]

35. I learned it...

In three classes in high school, but in all three classes it wasn't a special thing to talk about, it was just explained. My soph year, it was Biology, Jr year, Marine Biology, and my Sen year, Advanced Marine Biology. Evolution was discussed, and it was never contested in my high school, as far as i know. In college though, it seemed that Evolution was taught more in my philospy classes than in my biology class. We did touch on evolution in my biology class in college, but not as much, as it was in my philosphy classes. I saw no problem with it, it made sense. To me i see evolution every day, albiet in small steps.

[GumboYaYa]

37. I studied evolution in junior high and high school ('86 grad).

Recently I read a book on the history of science and discovered that the things I learned in high school have been greatly expanded upon. The fossil record is far more complete now and our knowledge of early multi-celled organisms has greatly expanded. Now we know there were far more than trilobytes in the Cambrian period. In fact Earth was teeming with life of types that was previously unknown. It is but an accident of history that the lines of life from whence we come survived the many extinction events that occurred from the Cambrian period til now.

[Tims]

39. In 1967-68

It was in our high school biology text book and it was supposed to be taught, but the teacher (who was the basketball coach and a Baptist Sunday school teacher) refused to cover it. He simply skipped the chapter without any explanation. When I asked him about it, he said he would get back to it later (of course he never did).

I was very well read in science, including evolution and the main reason I didn't make a stink was I already knew more than was covered in the textbook. A good friend of mine, two years younger, gave him hell about it strictly on principle and managed to get him to actually cover the chapter, though he did little other than have the students read the chapter and answer the questions published at the end of the chapter. It did help that he was a popular straight A student who's father owned one of the largest businesses in town.

I went to a small school and I feel it's very unlikely evolution ever gets taught in these schools even today if the science teacher (usually only one person teaches biology for the whole school) doesn't want too. There are few people who will challenge them. In a small town saying you believe in evolution is equivalent to saying you belong to satanic cult that sacrifices babies.

[ThomWV]

40. I Cannot Ever Remember Not Knowing It Was True

I went to public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland through the 50's and finished High School in 1966. I also went to school in Cyahoga (sp?) County, Ohio and Dade County, Florida. In none of those school system was any mention ever made of Divine intervention anywhere in any process - no matter what the subject matter involved from English through the Sciences and Social Studies all the way into Mathematics and the Chemistry of things.

[sakabatou]

41. I didn't learn it in class until 6th grade

Before that I read it in a book.

[Trillo]

42. I have trouble remembering back that far, started school in the mid-sixtie

but I think I learned more about evolution from the newspapers that I read everyday when going to school, than from anything presented in any classroom, in either public or private schools. I used to pay attention to the newspaper's science section, I think it was published one day a week.

Okay, I recalled a very old memory after leaving the computer for a bit. Wasn't Mendelson's Peas related to evolution? They taught us a little about that over several years, I guess to 'impress' the lesson. 1st year calculus from community college is mostly gone, too, even though I did really well in that class at the time.

Curiously, I've never been able to use any of that school-based information in the real world I've been forced to live in.

[u4ic]

46. I learned it, and I went to a Catholic HS

we were also taught that the majority of the bible was allegory.

[ernstbass]

51. We had Bible class in public school (60's)

I soooo wanted to be Catholic because they got to leave the room and sit in the library during that time.

[progressoid]

53. We had it in Earth Science - 9th grade - 1977