Background The religious or cultural objections by many people to the teaching of evolution in high school biology classrooms can impact both students' willingness to explore a scientific understanding of evolutionary theory and teachers' willingness to provide sound instruction on the topic. Pedagogical approaches designed to address this tension in the public or private US high school classroom during regular biology classroom instruction on evolution are needed. We developed a Cultural and Religious Sensitivity (CRS) Teaching Strategies Resource to aid teachers in acknowledging students' religious and cultural concerns about evolution, introducing the variety of possible relationships between science and religion, and focusing on the nature of science. The resource provides both background information for the teacher and activities to engage students in two 50-75 min directed classroom discussions. The CRS resource is part of a designed-based study, the Teaching Evolution through Human Examples (TEtHE) project that created and field tested four curriculum units for advanced placement high school biology classes that use human examples to teach evolution (Pobiner et al. Evol Educ Outreach. 2018;11:3 2018). Here we describe the design of the CRS resource and qualitative results of student focus groups that explore the extent to which the CRS resource activities helped to create a supportive classroom environment as well as more generally what benefits, if any, students derived from participating in these activities. Results Focus groups were conducted with students from five classes of four different teachers in both public and private US high schools. Focus group transcripts were analyzed to identify common themes expressed in relation to the students' experience of one of the two CRS activities. Benefits of participating in these activities noted by students included reduced tension around the topic of evolution, a recognition that evolution is not necessarily in conflict with religious belief, and an increased understanding of the cultural context of modern and historical views about evolution. Conclusions The themes identified through qualitative analyses of focus group transcripts support the conclusion that acknowledging students' concerns about evolution is a promising pedagogical approach to teaching evolution in conjunction with lessons designed to teach the content of evolutionary theory. The approach merits further research with general introductory high school biology classes.
