Why is teaching taxonomy

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Why is teaching taxonomy cladistics so
difficult?

• -the problems
• -the old way
• -the proposed new ways

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The Problems

• -teaching information to a wide variety of
  abilities majors non-majors both with range of
  background knowledge
• -teaching a complicated concept (taxonomy,
  cladistics evolution) to complete understanding
• -teaching a new and extensive vocabulary
• -teaching using organisms that are unfamiliar to
  illustrate a complex idea (a double wammy)

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The Old Way

• -Linnean Hierarchy vs cladistics
• -Venn Diagrams
• -extensive vocabulary without connection to
  examples
• -Cladograms, cladograms and more cladograms
• -Nuts Bolts Exercise (too open ended)

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The (Proposed) New Ways

• -Nuts Bolts exercised revamped to make it
  more specific
• -Use of new materials to illustrate cladograms
  (Tinker Toys, pipe cleaner, mobiles)
• -Creation of a board game to illustrate evolution
  and its relationship to cladograms

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Nuts Bolts exercise

• -use nuts and bolts to place on a pre-drawn
  cladogram
• -provide a specific ancestor (eliminates
  students picking at random most primitive item)
• -give specific character states to have
  students place items on cladogram
• -or roll dice to randomly choose next character
  (includes evolutionary theory)

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New Hands-on exercises

• -use of Tinker toys, pipe cleaners or mobile to
  show physical relations between clades and that
  nodes are inter-changeable (students have
  difficulty with rotation around a node, ie sister
  groups)
• -use of preprinted fake organisms with
  evolutionary characters that students place on
  cladogram (with associated characters). Shows
  increasing of complexity and eliminates the need
  for pre-knowledge of organisms.
• -use of dice to randomly assign new characters to
  organisms as they evolve. Then create a
  cladogram of evolutionary pathway.
• -creation of a board game (similar to Life)
  that uses cards with evolutionary information
  (niches, physical characters, environmental
  factors, extinction, etc) to advance through time.

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