Evolution is one of the most important theories for understanding biology and the world around
us, and one of the more difficult and complex subjects that students encounter. In addition, the
difficulty in teaching evolution is due to the extensive curriculum, the lack of time for deepen
knowledge, consolidation of the material and the teachers' lack of understanding of evolution
and therefore poor delivery of the material. Problems also arise as a result of religious beliefs.
How children understand evolution also depends, of course, on the textbooks on which teachers
often base their explanations. Poor quality textbooks can lead to students' misconceptions, so
how textbooks present content is important. Through research, we found that biology textbooks
in the 9th grade of primary school differ in range of pages that cover the content of evolution,
and they also differ in how many subcategories according to the FACE evolutionary framework
they cover and how in detail. There are also differences between the textbooks in the number
of visualization elements (pictures/photos/drawings, graphs, tables, models), tasks and
questions. The number of examples to explain the theory of evolution and their diversity
exceeded our expectations, as there are representatives of all kingdoms and as much as 80 % of
them are native to Slovenia, but animal examples predominate, which in 70 % of cases show
the acquisition of traits.
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