I teach high school biology. I've spent the entire year slowing and meticulously teaching the scientific method, cell function and structure, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and genetics. There have been bumps in the road as we've traveled to our current and final unit on evolution that have been interesting.

Bumps like "why is photosynthesis the exact opposite of cellular respiration?" and "why don't animals just reproduce the same way plants do?"

We've discussed these issues and looked at the fundamentals of how things have progressed throughout time immortal...and so when I announced a week ago that we had spent enough time talking about Mendel and his peas, and about DNA and RNA and alleles and probability factors, the class wanted to know what else there was to know.

I answered with a question: How does knowing about cell function and DNA and proteins and probability and traits and genes come together in the big picture of life on Earth?

The room went silent for a moment, then someone said it... all of that would explain how life began on Earth...and how life has changed.

Changed?

Evolved?

I held my breath a moment, expecting the closet creationists to comment, but all was silent.

Well, yes, understanding the fundamentals of biology, knowing how the cell works and how what happens inside a cell affects what that cell does or doesn't do has a direct impact on how the living organism that is the owner of that cell will "be".

And that's what evolution really is. How the genes of an organism relate and adapt to the world around it.

Some say, because evolution occurs so subtly and quietly in this world, we don't see it. I have always hoped to see evidence of evolution, of the different sorts of "finches" out there. Then one day I turned on the radio, and there it was, evolution alive and well on the savannas of Senegal.

Apparently there is a group of chimpanzees out there that are "different" from other chimpanzees. In case you didn't know it, chimpanzees share 98% of their DNA with humans. Both species are considered "hominids". The 2% that is different about the chimps has to do mainly with standing on 4 legs instead of 2 legs all the time and how they use their brains versus how we use our brains.

Chimps are usually found in the trees of dense forests in West Africa. They are omnivores, which means they eat both plant matter and meat, their source of protein, mainly in the form of small insects. Chimps have

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