Lee Meadows

Do you teach students who have lots of religious objections to evolution? Are you looking for an inquiry-based approach to teaching evolution? I'd like to help you both of those.

"The Missing Link" guides you through the process of setting up and teaching a unit on evolution. It gives you practical guidance, including lesson plans and how to deal with students' objections about evolution. It also directs you to a lot of web-based resources. I wrote it to meet the needs of middle school life science teachers and high school general biology teachers.

If you're looking for a way to teach evolution that's true to the science, but doesn't throw your religious students into turmoil, my book will help you. It will guide you in implementing an inquiry-based approach that helps all students, including your religious ones, understand evolution. Watch the videos on this page to find out more about my approach, including how you can use evolution to teach your students tolerance and civil discourse.

I grew up in Mississippi in a fundamentalist Christian church. I was also a kid who loved science. As you can imagine, those two worlds collided, and I was confused. Those experiences form the backdrop for the teaching approach I outline in "The Missing Link." I believe that teachers in public schools must be sensitive to students with religious objections to learning evolution. I don't bash religion in the book. Instead, I think it can be a beautiful part of human experience.

Over the past 15 years, I've also learned a lot about teaching science by inquiry. My last high school teaching experience was all about me learning the ropes of teaching by inquiry, and now I use it all the time when I work with teachers in my job as a science educator. When I sat down to write a book on teaching evolution in public schools where students had religious objections, I could think of no better way to lay out a teaching approach than via inquiry.

If you want to know more about my approach, please find me on Twitter at LeeOnInquiry, on Facebook, or email me at leemeadows@me.com. I look forward to hearing from you.