Integrating the Electronic Desktop into the Natural Sciences

Curriculum Development Project at California State University, Los Angeles

Natural Selection

NaturalSelection was created for an introductory college course in population genetics. It simulates changes in allele frequencies due to differences in viability among genotypes. Simulations can be conducted for one or two genes. For the one gene model, students can switch among several different views: allele frequency, change in allele frequency, mean fitness, or additive genetic variance. The population is represented as a black circle which moves along the graph as it evolves. In the two-gene model, the axes represent the allele frequencies of each gene. Clicking the mouse anywhere in the graph defines a set of initial conditions. The resulting trajectory shows the evolution of the population. Up to fifty simulations can be executed simultaneously. Students can set arbitary fitness values or choose from the additive, multiplicative, coadapted allele, or symmetric viability models for two genes. A screen image of a NaturalSelection session appears below. NaturalSelection was written by Dr. Robert Desharnais.

Click to download full resolution image (66.1 KB.)

The Electronic Desktop Project is about improving the way science is taught and learned by bringing the power of advanced workstation technology to introductory science students in both major and general education classes. This involves changing the way in which instruction is delivered using multi-media electronic mail, custom written visualization applications, powerful commercial software packages, and easy-to-use graphical applications that bring the resources of the Internet into the electronic classroom. This project has been funded by grants USE 9153162, DUE 9156142 and DUE 9455428 from the National Science Foundation. For more information contact Dr. Robert Desharnais (biology), (213) 343-2056, rdeshar@calstatela.edu, or Dr. Gary Novak (geology), (213) 343-2406, gnovak@calstatela.edu, California State University, Los Angeles, California, 90032.
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