ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through the process of natural selection is the unifying framework for the biological sciences and is the clear consensus scientific explanation for the origin of species. Unfortunately, despite an unambiguous consensus in the science and science education communities about the centrality of this disciplinary core idea, studies indicate that evolution instruction in high school has been "absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation". The Elevate learning progressions bring together a mapping of the scientifically accurate ideas about the concept of natural selection with empirically identified partial understandings and alternative ideas students have about those concepts. Depending on the shape of the curve drawn, it could be ascertained whether students understood that a mating pair could eventually produce an exponentially increasing population of organisms. Transformationist misconceptions manifest as attributing change to "a single process operating on the species' 'essence'".
