Erasmus Darwin was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, the members of which were referred to as “Lunaticks.” He is here described as a polymath, an 18th-century “natural philosopher” who was a physician, scientist (with interests in botany, zoology, meteorology, chemistry, among others), inventor, and poet who also advanced quite profound evolutionary ideas two generations prior to those of his grandson, Charles Robert Darwin.

The oceans are among the most biodiverse of Earth's environments. Introducing students to this diversity in the field provides an opportunity to examine the evolution of animals. We detail how readily a field-based biodiversity and evolution class can he designed and taught in a phyletically diverse marine setting in North America.

There have been five past great mass extinctions during the history of Earth. There is an ever-growing consensus within the scientific community that we have entered a sixth mass extinction. Human activities are associated directly or indirectly with nearly every aspect of this extinction. This article presents an overview of the five past great mass extinctions; an overview of the current Anthropocene mass extinction; past and present human activities associated with the current Anthropocene mass extinction; current and future rates of species extinction; and broad science-curriculum topics associated with the current Anthropocene mass extinction that can be used by science educators. These broad topics are organized around the major global, anthropogenic direct drivers of habitat modification, fragmentation, and destruction; overexploitation of species; the spread of invasive species and genes; pollution; and climate change.

Most biology texts villify Lamarck's concept of “inheritance of acquired characters” and leave the impression that all acquired characters are never transmitted to offspring. However, recent research indicates that this is not true! Some “acquired” traits are inherited. I profile some of these striking cases and their importance for evolution and for understanding a broader epigenetic context for heredity and ontogeny (the emerging field of “evo-devo”). Further, I discuss how such cases, even considered as exceptions, contribute to understanding the nature of science, both the role of general rules in biology and the occurrence of conceptual change, or paradigm shifts.

On the basis of an ethnobotanical survey that we conducted on plant use by descendents of the Khoi-San people in the Northern Cape Province in South Africa, we introduce biology teachers to an adapted rapid-appraisal methodology that can be followed in the life sciences classroom. Such a project addresses a number of the content standards in the National Science Education Standards, such as science as a human endeavour, the nature of science, and the history of science. We also shed light on ethical considerations when engaging in an ethnobotanical survey, and address, among other issues, intellectual property rights. Examples are provided of how teachers in the United States can sensitize students to the rich ethnobotanical heritage of their country.

Natural variation, including the continual selective pressures that lead to speciation, is one of the more dynamic aspects of biology. However, traditional instruction on the topic is often passive in nature, leaving little opportunity for scientific inquiry. In this laboratory exercise, we use a statistics-based, guided-inquiry approach to engage students in natural variation. Students are introduced to speciation and classification by using a dichotomous key to identify various common local trees on the basis of leaf characteristics. Once the students have learned characteristics useful for identification, they are given two leaf samples, a sugar maple and an “unknown.” They are asked to choose characteristics and collect quantitative data in order to determine whether the unknown is a sugar maple. Before data collection, students form hypotheses related to the identity of their unknown, followed by statistical comparison of means to support or refute their original hypotheses. In this way, students gain an appreciation for the activities undertaken by taxonomists that are related to natural variation and classification.

Misinformation, preconceptions, and the human perception of time (e.g., in seconds, minutes, days, and years) are factors that can contribute to difficulties experienced by students trying to understand evolutionary phenomena on the scale of geological or “deep” time. In addition to other approaches, the use of a simple online species-divergence estimate calculator, “TimeTree: The Timescale of Life,” can add resolution and clarity to big ideas that sometimes stand in the way of students' understanding of the unifying theory in biology, evolution.