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Through Darwins Eyes 5e Lesson Plan
Through Darwins Eyes 5e Lesson Plan
Community Resources Classwork will be differentiated by class level (i.e. honors vs.
and meeting needs general) and discussed with Cooperating Teacher and Special
students Education teachers/aides.
Exit Slip
Summative Exploring through Darwins Voyage and Unique Beak
Physique will be taken up as a grade to determine
understanding and need for short lecture on any confusing
material.
Activity Sheet Who Wants to Live a Million Years
Exploring the Galapagos Islands
Unique Beak Physique
Name:_______________________________ Date:_____________________ Block:_______
Species
Variation
Part 2: Many traits are passed from their parents to their offspring.
Define the following terms:
Traits
Offspring
Describe what specific variations bird 3 received from its parents = bird 1 and bird 2?
Bird #1 =
Bird #2 =
Part 3: Life in the wild is competitive, and organisms with the most beneficial traits will
prosper. This is commonly known as survival of the fittest.
Define the following term:
Object of the game: You will be choosing different traits of the same species to reproduce and
make a population. If you have good traits then your species will survive. If you want you can
use a genetic mutation life preserver to add another trait variation into the experiment. You
can do this twice in the game. If your population doesnt have enough variation they might not
survive the changes to their environment. Make sure to read all instructions and refer to this
worksheet. Begin playing!
Select your population! Draw a picture of the three trait variations you will have for your
population then hit proceed.
Did your species survive? If no try again!!!!! If yes, draw what your new population looks like
(three pictures).
What changes occurred to the environment did your species have to survive?
Play one more time.
How many years did you make it? (Look at the top right to find time.)
Stepping onto one of the beaches of the Galapagos Islands you find yourself
surrounded by dozens of sunbathing sea lions lying about on the sand like sacks
of potatoes. Walking along rocky shorelines, you encounter blue-footed boobies
laying eggs, not showing the slightest concern at your presence. Trace Darwin's
journey to see how the islands sparked his thinking about evolution. The
Galapagos Islands, a remote archipelago off the coast of Ecuador, may be the
birthplace of our scientific understanding of evolution.
Go to:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/explore-galapagos.html
Launch Interactive
Click on Explore
Click on Show Island names
Using the above map, label the names of each of the islands of the
archipelagos.
Click on: Explore the Islands
Click on the
1. Marine Iguana:
a. What do they eat?
3. Galapagos Penguin:
a. What other species are they related to?
4. Flightless Cormorant:
a. Why did they lose the ability to fly?
6. Darwins Finches
a. How many species exist on the islands?
8. Sea Lion:
a. How are sea lion pups similar to humans?
9. Coral Reef:
a. What occurred that killed off a large portion of the coral reef?
#2 The Collector
What types of information and items did Darwin collect?
#3 Tortoises
What did the crew do with the tortoises?
What was unique about the tortoises that the Spaniards knew?
#4 Darwins Finches
When studying the finches, what did he discover after returning to England?
(about the finches)
b. Evolution
c. Geology of Earth
Based on what you have observed on the Galapagos Islands, would your conclusions have been
similar to Darwins? Explain.
Name: ___________________________________ Date: ___________________ Block:______
Unique Beak Physique
In August 2006 in the Journal Nature, a group led by Harvard biologist Clif Tabin showed that
the beak shapes of Darwin's finches are due to slightly different timing and spatial expressions of
a gene called calmodulin. Calmodulin is used by the developing embryo to help lay down
skeletal features (including the beak) and using microarray data and early embryo staining from
each of the species, this groups could show how the different beak shapes were obtained. His
article does not explain how adaptive radiation may have changed calmodulin expression, only
that this was the way that the beak changes were reached.
INSTRUCTIONS
Today you are going to participate in an activity designed to demonstrate how different
adaptations help different birds in collecting different types of food.
You will be given a tool used to represent a bird beak and will be asked to collect as much
food as you can in a 30 second period. Then you will compare what how birds with different
beak adaptations are better at collecting different types of seeds.
**Use your beaks only to collect your foodany using of beaks in as aggressive or defensive
devices will result in loss of beak, activity grade, and participation.**
BEFORE STARTING YOUR EXPERIMENT:
Which beak will pick up which food most efficiently? Check the box to complete your
hypothesis.
Spoon Fork Clip Tweezers Chopsticks
Styrofoam
Large seeds
(M&Ms)
Small seeds
(Nerds)
Tooth picks
DATA COLLECTION
My tool _________________
Data table 1.
How many I collected:
______ Large Styrofoam beads
______ Large Seeds
______ Small seeds
_____ Tooth picks
Class data
Average collected by each tool
Spoon Fork Clip Tweezers Chopsticks Total
Styrofoam
Large seeds
Small seeds
Tooth picks
Total
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS
1. Which tool collected the most seeds on the class average?
4. Which type of seed was the bird that collected the least amount of seeds best at collecting?
5. If the environment changed such that the seed type from question #4 was more abundant, what
do you think would happen to the population of that bird? The populations of the other birds?
6. Does having a different shape beak (or different tool) help reduce competition between the
birds searching for food? Explain why or why not.
7. After Ms. Jarrett comes around and changes your environment/food, did your tool still work?
Were you more or less successful than the first time (how much did you eat)?
Name: _____________________________ Date: ______________________ Block: _______
Exit Slip
1. What is one thing that you learned today?
2. What is one thing that you do not understand from the concepts you learned today?