Human Evolution for Secondary and College Students

This module is made up of four concepts. The goal of the first concept is to elicit an understanding of primate relatedness, phylogeny, and how specific characteristics are beneficial for life in an arboreal environment. The next concept explains the overarching trends in hominin evolution and the selective pressures that encouraged their development. Concept three examines specific fossils and the characteristics that are associated with them. This concept serves to provide a timeline of hominin evolution. The final concept encourages students to understand characteristics in the hominin lineage and how they relate to social behaviors. This concept ends by driving home the point that evolution is a dynamic and continual process.

本模块由四个核心概念构成。首个概念旨在引发学生对灵长类动物亲缘关系、系统发育及其在树栖环境中特定特征的生存优势的理解。第二个概念阐释了人属演化的总体趋势以及促进其发展的选择性压力。第三个概念检视了特定化石及其相关特征，以此构建人属演化的时间线。最后，第四个概念鼓励学生认识人属谱系中的特征及其与社会行为的关系。本概念旨在强调，进化是一个动态且持续的进程。