Unless you teach in a religiously-sponsored school, religion probably plays little role in your teaching of science. However, the "prior knowledge" of your students includes some decidedly non-scientific, religion-inspired viewpoints that ought to be taken into account. Renowned evolutionist Richard Dawkins' best-selling atheist thesis, "The God Delusion", attacks faith of all kinds head-on, and challenges the beliefs of every reasoning person. While he points out that few distinguished scientists hold traditional religious values, that is not true of most teachers of science and is definitely not true of our students. I recommend that teachers read this book, but be cautious about how the material in it is used in the classroom. Even if you fully agree with his very skeptical view of religion, it does not serve our educational mission to confront students with ideas that they will reject out of hand because those concepts do not comport with previous religious training. On the other hand, I agree with Dawkins that religious ideas are given more deference than they deserve, just because they are "religious". I also recommend Dawkins' books on evolution, especially "The Blind Watchmaker" "The Selfish Gene", and "River Out of Eden", which was my Pick of the Month in April of 1997.