ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1606625
This article is part of the Research TopicImmunology Education: In the Classroom and BeyondView all 6 articles
Introducing undergraduate students to human evolution through eco-immunology
Provisionally accepted
- 1Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
- 2Minnesota State University Moorhead, Moorhead, Minnesota, United States
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The benefits of actively engaging students in the learning process have been widely demonstrated in research literature. This is especially relevant for teaching undergraduate students about evolutionary processes and content. Examining eco-immunological data can help students overcome the naive conception that humans are not evolving or affected by evolutionary pressures. Here, we introduce an approach that uses eco-immunology in human and non-human systems to teach about evolutionary processes in life-history traits. The module challenges students to (i) distinguish between immunological and evolutionary fitness, (ii) evaluate graphical data from the primary scientific literature on energy allocation and trade-offs, and (iii) integrate these proximate and ultimate processes into a more wholistic understanding of on-going human evolution. We present evidence on the effectiveness of this inquiry-based activity for undergraduate students in both large introductory and small honors Evolution classroom settings.
Keywords: evolution, immunology, fitness, trade-offs, Graphical reasoning, Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Received: 06 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Balgopal, Neuwald and Pandey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Meena M. Balgopal, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
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