Students in introductory biology courses often struggle to visualize and understand the process of evolution in complex organisms. The slow and gradual nature of evolution makes it challenging to design laboratory activities that allow for direct observations of evolutionary change, especially in higher taxonomic groups. Our department has designed and refined a set of labs involving direct specimen observations and cladogram construction in order to help students (mostly non-Biology majors) in an introductory Ecology and Evolution course understand the process of evolution. These lab activities allow the students to view both extant and extinct species, visualizing structural similarities and differences first-hand. Groups of specimens include flowers from extant angiosperms, extant vertebrate skeletons, fossils of extinct plants and animals, and skulls of extinct and extant hominids. Faculty teaching the course can select the sets of specimens that work best for their individual approach.?
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