The Evolving Appalachia Project is an experiment in regional science outreach from Southwest Virginia CSI, a science education initiative coordinated through Dr. Walter Smith and students at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. The concept behind this project is to provide an online home to feature and condense real-world examples of ecological and evolutionary processes in action in the Appalachian Mountain region. The roots for this site stem from an existing, successful smartphone app harnessing public lands as educational tools in Appalachia, a popular, now-defunct segment on our lab’s main website, and requests from regional educators. Roughly once per month, we will feature an organism or ecosystem that exemplifies evolution in action from across the southern Appalachian Highlands.
Why evolution?
To co-opt Theodosius Dobzhansky’s famous quote, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” If you eat or grow vegetables, receive treatment for a bacterial infection, or trace your family’s ancestry, you have evolutionary processes to thank. Evolutionary mechanisms, in fact, bridge virtually all disciplines in biology, from medical research to wildlife ecology and genetics. While this website will not serve as a replacement to a course in evolution or a conceptual textbook, our hope is that it will provide a general introduction to how this remarkable process has impacted (and still impacts) the Appalachian region. Posts appearing on this site may wander freely across pure evolutionary biology, ecology, and other disciplines such as geology but will all be loosely based around how evolution has impacted the region.
Why local examples of evolution?
Science pedagogy tells us that, for rural students such as those found across Appalachia, complex topics are often best communicated by introducing these topics using local examples that are already familiar to a student’s preexisting cultural background. While many common examples of evolution in action (think Darwin’s Finches) beautifully illustrate evolutionary mechanisms, these examples often involve organisms that are largely foreign to rural students in the Appalachian region. The widespread use of such examples by major science textbooks and public outreach websites not only runs counter to our understanding of how rural students learn but also fosters a misconception that examples of evolution in action are uncommon and constrained to far-away places. This project attempts to break through this misconception by bringing real science from the peer-reviewed literature to life in an accessible format understood by readers of all backgrounds and ages.
Why Appalachia?
Appalachia - referring for this project to the region defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission - is uniquely positioned as a hotspot for biodiversity (and the evolutionary processes shaping that biodiversity), yet it is also situated in a broader region with an unusually low acceptance of evolutionary theory among the public. Although the causes for this lack of acceptance are multifaceted and complex, this project feels that proactively bringing local examples of science’s most influential theory to our region’s residents stands to be more effective than reactively lamenting this educational gap. Furthermore, an abnormally high rate of poverty and educational ineffectiveness in the region stand as barriers to allowing Appalachian residents access to peer-reviewed science. We hope that this site will become a clearinghouse for both the public and educators from all levels within the region and beyond.
(All content on this site is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not represent the opinion or endorsement of any other educational institution, organization, individual, or group. Unless stated otherwise, summaries of preexisting journal articles have not been produced or endorsed by original article authors.)
