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Darwin's Big Ideas

These are what we have identified as Darwin's Big Ideas and what we use to frame Darwin Inspired Learning:

  • Species change through geological time
  • The significance of hidden aspects of the natural world, the slow, hidden and very large and very small
  • The argument for natural selection as a mechanism for evolution.
  • The place of colonisation, invasion and extinction of species
  • The ecological balance of nature and how it can be disturbed
  • The importance of biodiversity for the stability of ecosystems
  • The significance of sexual reproduction in viability of species and in passing on inherited characteristics
  • Fertilisation in orchids and flowering plants
  • The circumnutation movements of plants and their significance for survival
  • The intelligence of earthworms and bees
  • The nutrition of carnivorous plants
  • The evolutionary tree
  • The analogy of natural selection to artificial selection
  • The common ancestry of apes and humans

Also see Darwin's Ways of Working.