{
  "schema": "evo-edu.notebook.didactopus_learning_sequence.v1",
  "id": "notebook.learning-paths.foundations-first-ring.didactopus",
  "title": "Foundations First Ring Didactopus Sequence",
  "created": "2026-05-14",
  "updated": "2026-05-14",
  "status": "draft-consumer-sequence",
  "source_path": "/notebook/learning-paths/foundations-first-ring.json",
  "sequence_kind": "guided_core_concepts",
  "learner_model": {
    "intended_use": "first-pass guided mentorship on the current scaffold-backed Notebook core",
    "mentor_style": [
      "ask for short public reasoning products",
      "separate observation from inference",
      "keep rival explanations visible",
      "prefer revision over verdict"
    ],
    "success_condition": "the learner can restate each concept, distinguish it from nearby alternatives, and explain why it appears where it does in the path"
  },
  "prelude": {
    "title": "Evidence And Cause",
    "url": "/apps/evidence-cause-workbench/",
    "session_goal": "Make the learner separate observation, baseline, candidate cause, stochasticity, magnitude, and simplification before using mechanism-specific models.",
    "mentor_opening": "Ask the learner to describe a biological pattern without using the word because.",
    "evidence_focus": "observation versus causal attribution"
  },
  "sequence": [
    {
      "position": 1,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.allele-frequency-change",
      "title": "Allele Frequency Change",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/allele-frequency-change.html",
      "session_goal": "Get the learner to define evolution in the population-genetic sense and describe change across generations explicitly.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask the learner to name the population, allele, and generation interval before explaining any change.",
      "evidence_focus": "observation versus mechanism",
      "next_transition": "Move to the null-model question: what should frequencies look like if no force is pushing them away from expectation?"
    },
    {
      "position": 2,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.hardy-weinberg-equilibrium",
      "title": "Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/hardy-weinberg-equilibrium.html",
      "session_goal": "Use the equilibrium idea as a null model rather than a fact to memorize.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask which assumptions must hold before the baseline expectation is even meaningful.",
      "evidence_focus": "null-model assumptions and departures",
      "next_transition": "Move to one concrete reason a population may depart from the null model even without advantage: chance sampling."
    },
    {
      "position": 3,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.genetic-drift",
      "title": "Genetic Drift",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/genetic-drift.html",
      "session_goal": "Make the learner comfortable with chance as a real explanation for frequency change.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask what repeated runs should look like if drift is dominating the result.",
      "evidence_focus": "run-to-run variation and population size",
      "next_transition": "Move to the contrast case: what would make change look directional for a reason other than chance?"
    },
    {
      "position": 4,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.natural-selection",
      "title": "Natural Selection",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/natural-selection.html",
      "session_goal": "Teach the learner to demand evidence for biased reproductive difference instead of inferring adaptation too quickly.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask what evidence would make selection a stronger explanation than drift in the same scenario.",
      "evidence_focus": "trait effect, fitness difference, environmental context",
      "next_transition": "Move to where new variants come from before any later filtering happens."
    },
    {
      "position": 5,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.mutation",
      "title": "Mutation",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/mutation.html",
      "session_goal": "Help the learner separate origin of variation from later frequency change.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask for one sentence about how a variant appeared and a second about what happened to it afterward.",
      "evidence_focus": "origin versus later filtering",
      "next_transition": "Move to interpretation: when can the learner say a variant or trait is actually adaptive?"
    },
    {
      "position": 6,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.adaptation",
      "title": "Adaptation",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/adaptation.html",
      "session_goal": "Train the learner not to confuse usefulness or prevalence with a complete adaptive explanation.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask what evidence is still missing before the learner should call a trait adaptive.",
      "evidence_focus": "rival explanations and context dependence",
      "next_transition": "Move from local trait interpretation to lineage-level divergence."
    },
    {
      "position": 7,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.speciation",
      "title": "Speciation",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/speciation.html",
      "session_goal": "Connect population change to lineage splitting and reduced gene flow.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask what evidence would show that two populations are no longer functioning as one evolving gene pool.",
      "evidence_focus": "gene flow, reproductive isolation, layered evidence",
      "next_transition": "Move from repeated lineage splitting to the larger historical pattern those splits accumulate into."
    },
    {
      "position": 8,
      "concept_id": "notebook.concepts.common-descent",
      "title": "Common Descent",
      "url": "/notebook/concepts/common-descent.html",
      "session_goal": "Show how branching lineage history becomes the broader shared-ancestry pattern.",
      "mentor_opening": "Ask why one resemblance is weaker evidence than a nested pattern supported by multiple lines of evidence.",
      "evidence_focus": "nested evidence and historical inference",
      "next_transition": "Transition into later history, fossil, and evidence-cluster work."
    }
  ]
}