title: Fantastic animals as an experimental model to teach animal adaptation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Science curricula and teachers should emphasize evolution in a manner commensurate with its importance as a unifying concept in science. The concept of adaptation represents a first step to understand the results of natural selection. We settled an experimental project of alternative didactic to improve knowledge of organism adaptation. Students were involved and stimulated in learning processes by creative activities. To set adaptation in a historic frame, fossil records as evidence of past life and evolution were considered.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The experimental project is schematized in nine phases: review of previous knowledge; lesson on fossils; lesson on fantastic animals; planning an imaginary world; creation of an imaginary animal; revision of the imaginary animals; adaptations of real animals; adaptations of fossil animals; and public exposition. A rubric to evaluate the student's performances is reported. The project involved professors and students of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and of the "G. Marconi" Secondary School of First Degree (Modena, Italy).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The educational objectives of the project are in line with the National Indications of the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction: knowledge of the characteristics of living beings, the meanings of the term "adaptation", the meaning of fossils, the definition of ecosystem, and the particularity of the different biomes. At the end of the project, students will be able to grasp particular adaptations of real organisms and to deduce information about the environment in which the organism evolved. This project allows students to review previous knowledge and to form their personalities.
authors.affiliation: Scuola di Specializzazione per l'Insegnamento Secondario, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy. guidetti.roberto@unimore.it
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guidetti
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Baraldi
authors.forename: Caterina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Calzolai
authors.forename: Lorenza
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pini
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Veronesi
authors.forename: Aurora
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pederzoli
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000818:Animals; D005201:Fantasy; D005580:Fossils; D008954:Models, Biological; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*