Understanding Race
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RACE: A Teacher’s Guide for High School Prepared By Joseph Jones, Mary Margaret Overbey, Alan Goodman, Carol Mukhopadhyay, Yolanda Moses and Amy Beckrich A Project of American Anthropological Association Funded by Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation © 2007 American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 3 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE................................................................................................................ 3 National Science Education Standards.............................................................................................. 4 Selected State Science Content Standards......................................................................................... 4 National Social Studies Curriculum Standards ................................................................................. 7 Selected State Social Studies Content Standards .............................................................................. 7 EXPLORING HUMAN BIOLOGICAL VARIATION .................................................................... 10 Continuous Trait Variation ............................................................................................................. 13 Graphing Independence .................................................................................................................. 17 Apportioning Phenotypic and Genetic Variation ............................................................................ 27 Gene Flow Illustration .................................................................................................................... 32 EXPLORING CULTURAL VARIATION ........................................................................................ 33 Culture Shapes How We See the World .......................................................................................... 36 Color Terms ..................................................................................................................................... 42 Classifying Relatives ....................................................................................................................... 43 Classifying in Other Cultures: A Cultural IQ Test! ........................................................................ 45 Census Activity ................................................................................................................................ 47 EXPERIENCING RACE AND RACISM .......................................................................................... 50 Experiencing Inequality .................................................................................................................. 53 Whiteness Quiz ................................................................................................................................ 61 Preference Activity .......................................................................................................................... 63 Race and Medicine Project ............................................................................................................. 66 RESOURCES........................................................................................................................................ 69 Glossary........................................................................................................................................... 69 Bibliography of Selected Works ..................................................................................................... 72 Web Sites......................................................................................................................................... 73 This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0307843. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do no necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. © 2007 American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. 2 INTRODUCTION Welcome to the RACE Project, a public education effort designed to enhance understanding of race and human variation. The RACE Project, developed by the American Anthropological Association with funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation, focuses on developing a public education program that includes a traveling exhibit, public website and educational materials to provide a variety of learning experiences for everyone. The program builds on the current science and scholarship on race and human variation and we have a special interest in educational outreach to middle school and high school students, their teachers and parents. The RACE Project is the first national collaborative effort to present an integrated view of race and human variation through biological, cultural and historical perspectives. The public education program explains how human biological variation differs from race, when and why the idea of race was invented, and how race and racism affect everyday life. The program has three primary messages. (1) Race is a recent human invention. (2) The idea of race is about culture, not biology. (3) Race and racism are embedded in our institutions and everyday life. This teacher’s guide serves as a teaching tool to assist educators in addressing race and human variation in the classroom. The guide meets national and select state standards for science and social studies and teachers may use the various lesson plans to develop a module on race and human variation for biology, social studies or social science classes. We encourage teachers to present the topic of race and human variation in an integrated fashion as we have done in the guide. HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE This teacher’s guide presents race and human variation through the integrated lenses of biology, culture and history. The guide includes a series of lesson plans that fall within one of three broad topic areas: (1) Exploring Human Biological Variation; (2) Exploring How Culture Shapes Race; and (3) Experiencing Race and Racism in Everyday Life. The lesson plans can be infused into existing curriculum for science, biology, social studies and social science classes. Each lesson plan provides an overview, describes objectives, and outlines the time, materials and procedure for conducting the lesson. We encourage teachers to consider team teaching to develop and co-teach a module on race and human variation that incorporates lesson plans in this guide. In middle school, this may involve developing a team of science teachers and social studies teachers to put together a module of complementary activities on race and human variation. In high school, the team may include biology teachers, history teachers, and social science teachers in developing a module of complementary activities on race and human variation. © 2007 American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. 3 RELATIONSHIP OF THE GUIDE TO NATIONAL AND STATE STANDARDS OF LEARNING RACE: A Teacher's Guide addresses national and state content standards for science and social studies education. National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996: http://www.nsta.org/standards ) GRADES 9-12 Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop • Understandings about scientific inquiry Content Standard C: Life Science As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of • Biological Evolution Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of • Personal and community health • Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of • Science as a human endeavor • Nature of scientific knowledge • Historical perspectives Selected State Science Content Standards CALIFORNIA http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/scmain.asp Standards that all students are expected to achieve in the course of their studies are unmarked. Standards that all students should have the opportunity to learn are marked with an asterisk (*). GRADES 9-12 Biology/Life Sciences Ecology 6. Stability in an ecosystem is a balance between competing effects. As a basis for understanding this concept: g. *Students know how to distinguish between the accommodation of an individual organism to its environment and the gradual adaptation of a lineage of organisms through genetic change. Evolution © 2007 American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. 4 7. The frequency of an allele in a gene pool of a population depends on many factors and may be stable or unstable over time. As a basis for understanding this concept: a. Students know why natural selection acts on the phenotype rather than the genotype of an organism. 8. Evolution is the result of genetic changes that occur in constantly changing environments. As a basis for understanding this concept: a. Students know how natural selection determines the differential survival of groups of organisms. b. Students know a great diversity of species increases the chance that at least some organisms survive major changes in the environment. c. Students