UNLV educational psychology professor Gale Sinatra was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Synthesis Grant, the first NSF grant to be awarded to the College of Education, to study the challenges of learning and teaching biological evolution in schools.

Sinatra, along with professors from Arizona State University and the University of Michigan, have received more than $200,000 from the NSF's Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program to examine how socio-cultural attitudes have affected students' understanding of the theory of biological evolution.

"A multitude of excellent resources addressing the core concepts and processes of biological evolution exist for educators," said Sinatra. "However, students' understanding of the scientific explanation of evolution is still below that necessary for basic scientific literacy."

To determine why this rift exists, Sinatra and her colleagues will gather scholars from the disciplines of biological evolution, developmental psychology, cognitive science and education in a series of regional meetings throughout the next year, one of which will be held at UNLV, to discuss existing research.

Topics arising from the regional meetings will provide the framework for a national three-day workshop to be held next fall in conjunction with the bi-annual meeting of the Southwest Consortium for Innovations in Psychology in Education, a partnership of southwestern universities that includes UNLV.

The grant will result in a series of publications for researchers and practitioners to aid in the teaching and learning of biological evolution.

"The goal of our project is not to devise new curriculum, but to bring the best people on the theory of evolution together to discuss the issues surrounding the teaching of this central topic in biology," said Sinatra. She hopes the results of the project will create opportunities for researchers at UNLV to pursue empirical grants for further research on teaching and learning about biological evolution.

Sinatra joined the faculty of UNLV in 2000 after nine years with the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Utah. She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1989 and has been actively researching issues in the psychology of learning for more than 25 years.