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The controversy of biological evolution due to conflicts with personal beliefs and worldviews is a phenomenon that spans many cultures. Acceptance of evolution is essential for global advancement in science, technology, and agriculture. Previous research has tended to focus on the factors that can influence acceptance of evolution by culture or country. Our research explored the relationship on an international scale using secondary data analysis to research evolution acceptance for 35 countries. Our results indicate significant relationships between public acceptance of evolution and religiosity, school-life expectancy, science literacy, and gross domestic product per capita. Implications and future directions for research are addressed.

State and national standards call for teaching evolution concepts as early as kindergarten, which provides motivation to continue developing science instruction and curriculum for young learners. The importance of addressing students’ folk theories regarding science justifies teaching evolution early in K-12 education. In this project, we developed, implemented, and researched standards-based lessons to teach elements of evolution (speciation and adaption) to kindergarteners and second graders. Our lessons attended to the students’ prior knowledge, and utilized inquiry and modeling to teach and assess their ability to recognize patterns of similarity and differences among organisms. Using their products and comments as evidence, it was apparent the students were able to communicate recognition of patterns and effectively apply their knowledge in near transfer activities, indicating they achieved our learning objectives. This provides support for teaching evolution concepts in the early grades and evidence of the ability for young children to effectively engage in supported inquiry and modeling for learning science.

The current study explores variables related to public acceptance of evolution in the United States by state. Data on acceptance of evolution, religiosity, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree attainment, educational attainment, high school dropout rate, average teacher salary, and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita were analyzed for the 50 states. Employing secondary data analysis, bivariate correlations were used to investigate the relationship between US acceptance of evolution and each variable. As predicted, there was a strong negative correlation between acceptance of evolution and religiosity and a strong positive relationship between acceptance and science degrees awarded, bachelor degree attainment, advanced degree attainment, average teacher salary, and GDP per capita. Several implications for evolution education and acceptance are discussed.