Roadmap evo-edu.org

Roadmap for coherent labs, curriculum support, and self-directed study.

Roadmap

Build evo-edu.org around pathways, not disconnected apps.

The next version of evo-edu.org should give teachers and self-learners a stable home for digital evolution labs, field ecology resources, scaffolded learning pathways, and project-based exploration tied to the NGSS.

LS4 + LS2 Start from evolution and ecosystem dynamics, then widen out.
K12 + self-study Support teachers, classrooms, clubs, and motivated autodidacts.
Pathways first Organize site growth around usable learning sequences and support materials.
One frame Consistent theme, navigation, expectations, and progression language.

Priority expansion order

  1. Phase 1: stabilize the public shell. Keep navigation, theming, provenance, app contracts, and pathway framing consistent across the current public surface.
  2. Phase 2: deepen pathway packs. Turn the current packs into fuller lesson bundles with handouts, teacher notes, study logs, timing guidance, and expected evidence products.
  3. Phase 3: strengthen the explanatory spine. Expand the Notebook so it actually carries conceptual grounding, misconceptions, history, and links into the packs and app guides.
  4. Phase 4: broaden standards-linked coverage. Extend beyond the strongest LS4 and LS2 areas into more explicit LS3 inheritance, biodiversity, adaptation, and ESS3 environmental-change coverage.
  5. Phase 5: guided study and mastery support. Connect Didactopus to structured pack flows, reflection prompts, review paths, and source-checking routines without turning it into an answer machine.

Platform roles

Digital Evolution Lab

The core lab environment for mutation, selection, adaptation, tradeoffs, and evidence from digital experiments.

EcoSpecies Atlas

The field-and-data side of evo-edu.org, where ecology, species life history, biodiversity, and research documentation come together.

Didactopus

A guided-study companion for autodidacts and structured review. It should support evo-edu course packs, concept maps, and reflection workflows.

Literature Explorer

A research-support tool for topic expansion, bibliography discovery, and evidence trails, built on the CiteGeist API.

Cross-Project Integration

Didactopus

Best near-term integration target. Use it as the guided-study and learner-workbench layer behind evo-edu packs, review prompts, concept paths, and reflection workflows. A useful web component already has a plausible base in the existing review-workbench and learner-session direction.

Operational Premise Taxonomy

Best treated first as a linked reference and advanced-topic resource. A later useful web component would be a classifier/explorer UI for OPT codes, example systems, and audit logs, especially for AI literacy or advanced Didactopus-linked study.

VHostLoom

Best treated as infrastructure support rather than a learner-facing evo-edu component. A later useful web component would be an operator-facing site-planning and deployment workbench for stacks, auth, VPN-only services, and generated host layouts.

Feature-Dev Evaluation

Adopt in part, not in whole

The newer feature-dev packages are useful as design and prototype material, but they should not replace the current metadata-driven evo-edu publication pipeline outright. The strongest pieces are the app ideas, the lightweight shared JavaScript helper direction, and the educational framing pattern.

What to port forward

Port the best concepts into the current wordpress_data/apps model: start with Fitness Landscape Explorer, then consider Speciation Simulator, Evolutionary Game Theory Lab, Selection vs Drift Inference Lab, and Genotype → Phenotype Mapper as the next app tranche.

What not to replace yet

Do not adopt the Org-template/shared-include package system or the package bundles as the new canonical source of truth. Those would create a second competing framework beside the current app.json plus generator workflow.

Recommended next implementation steps

  1. Turn the Visible Change pack into a fuller middle-school lesson bundle with teacher notes, pacing, and assessment criteria.
  2. Add teacher notes and classroom-use guidance to the Evidence Trail pack so it can support seminars, clubs, and advanced independent learners.
  3. Expand the Notebook so every current pack has a matching conceptual entry point and follow-up reading path.
  4. Develop EcoSpecies activity sets around food webs, habitat change, biodiversity, and evidence evaluation, then connect them directly into pathway packs.
  5. Prioritize EcoSpecies citation backfill by unresolved backlog and species workload so bibliography cleanup improves steadily across the corpus.
  6. Use Didactopus to generate structured study packs, review paths, and reflection prompts tied to evo-edu resources and readings.
  7. Integrate Literature Explorer into teacher workflows, EcoSpecies editorial work, and advanced self-learner bibliography building.
  8. Review the public app set again and keep unpublished anything that does not yet meet the current shell, guide, provenance, and testing expectations.
  9. Add direct resource links from evo-edu packs and pathway pages into Didactopus domains, Operational Premise Taxonomy references, and other external project materials where they serve the learner task.
  10. Prototype a Didactopus web-facing learner workbench that can consume evo-edu pathway packs as structured study inputs, starting with the Evidence Trail pack as the first pilot.
  11. Keep OPT and VHostLoom on the broader roadmap as likely later web components: OPT as a classifier/explorer and VHostLoom as an operator workbench.
  12. Use the feature-dev materials as prototype inputs only: port selected app ideas and JS helper patterns into the current evo-edu app pipeline instead of adopting the package framework wholesale.
  13. Prioritize Fitness Landscape Explorer as the first candidate for that port, then evaluate Speciation Simulator and Evolutionary Game Theory Lab as the next likely additions.