To pass biology in Florida public schools, students must understand the basic science of evolution.

What might surprise some people is that this requirement was added to the Florida public school standards just this year.

The updated and, by many accounts, vastly improved standards are on the books now thanks to David Campbell '77 and dozens of other educators in Florida who crafted them last year. It was the first time the standards had been rewritten since 1996 and the first time the word "evolution" was included in them.

Campbell, a former U.S. Navy flight instructor, was one of five educators who worked primarily on the biology sections of the standards. He has been teaching biology at Jacksonville's Ridgeview High School for 15 years. And though it was never required until recently, Campbell has always taught evolution, which the new standards call "the organizing principle of life science."

Campbell, at age 52, describes himself as "passionate" about science -- as passionate as he was years ago when he started teaching.

"I teach a full-year biology course, and I still get really excited about ecology, genetics and basic anatomy," said Campbell. "There are very few things in the course that I don't find interesting."

During the 2007 public comment period on the draft school standards, the 90-page document received about 12,000 comments, Campbell said. Of those, up to 98 percent were directed at the half-page explanation of high school standards for evolution.

For years, the scientific community has had to defend empirical data supporting evolution in the face of naysayers who insist on calling it a "theory." From religious groups who refute any notion that humans and animals evolved over time to the more subtle groups who promote "intelligent design" as an alternative explanation for life's complexity, evolutionary biology has faced a torrent of ideological opposition for many years.

The distortion of science bothers, even frightens Campbell, who was a biology major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell. He is dismayed at the idea that such important decisions as how students should be trained in basic science could be based on "beliefs or assumptions," instead of facts.

Many of Campbell's students come from religious backgrounds and are raised to see Biblical creation stories as fact. Yet Campbell, a practicing Anglican who attends church every Sunday, does not see his job as trying to challenge religion in any way, but rather helping his students understand fact-based science.

Campbell credits a favorite aunt, who took him to museums as a child, with first sparking his lifelong interest in biology and science. But it was at Cornell, where Campbell studied on an ROTC scholarship, where his passion was truly cultivated.

He rattled off a list of professors who influenced him -- Karen Arms, Thomas Eisner and George Eikwort among them. While a student, Campbell was active in a natural history society called Jordani, which hosted lectures and forums with speakers from Cornell or other universities. He remembers sitting in rapt attention during talks by Bill Keeton, a professor who studied homing pigeons, and for whom a West Campus house is now named.

"After we did the program, for 45 minutes to an hour afterward, we would talk about science," Campbell said.

Though Cornell has huge classes where students can sometimes feel lost, Campbell said he got around that through his relationships with professors.

"Most of the professors I had were very willing to work with students in small groups," Campbell said. "While they were giving you technical knowledge, they also transmitted their own enthusiasm. You can learn a lot about the teaching profession just by watching people who do it well."

Even though the evolution and intelligent design debate still draws ire, Campbell reports that in his nearly 15 years of teaching, only one parent has ever actually complained about his teaching of the subject.

The parent, whose daughter was not even in Campbell's class, had heard through the grapevine that Campbell was teaching the "'e' word," he said.

"I saw her in church every Sunday morning," he said. "That's the only complaint I've had in all these years."