The Theory of Evolution
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LTLT: I can develop,
communicate, and justify an evidence-based explanation for the evolution of
organisms and environments by analyzing and interpreting data from the fossil
record.
LT: I can describe the Theory of
Evolution
Criteria for Success:
I can
analyze Darwin’s study of Finches
I can
brainstorm reasons for evolution.
Agenda:
Warm
up
Evolution
notes
Evolution
brainstorm
Finch
Beak Data Analysis
Debrief
Warm up:
What
is an inherited trait? How can it help/hurt an animal’s chance for survival?
Evolution
Notes:
Evolution
brainstorm
Students
are grouped into 3’s. They choose one of the evolution types and try to come up
with reasons for why it evolved. Write their theories onto chart paper to share
with the rest of the class.
|
Notes:
LT: I can describe
the Theory of Evolution
A theory is a
well supported testable explanation of phenomena that
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Evolution or
change over time is the process by which modern organisms have
_________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Theory of
Evolution: plants and animals have changed and become more complex over
time. They have evolved (changed) over millions of years to become what they
are today.
Adaptations: A
trait that helps an organism _______________________________________________
Darwin's Finches: Describe what he discovered.
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Natural Selection:
The organisms best suited to survive in their particular
circumstances have a greater chance of passing their traits
on to _______________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
1) In your own words describe evolution.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
2) What is an adaptation? Give an example of an adaptation
we see in nature.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
3) Why were Darwin’s observations an important part of
creating the theory of
evolution?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
4) How does the theory of evolution relate to the fossil
record?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
5) Predict what would happen to the finches if the climate
of the Galapagos Islands
were to change.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Name: _______________ Date: ___________ Class
Period: __________________
LT: I can describe the Theory of Evolution
Darwin’s Finches
On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean,
close to the equator, there are a variety of different finches, which
vary in the shape and size of their beaks. It appears
that the finches colonized the Islands from mainland South America,
and then diverged in form. The distance between the islands meant that the
finches on different islands could not interbreed, so the populations on the
different island tended to become distinct. Different populations also became
specialized for different food sources, birds with thin, sharp beaks eating
insects and birds with large, sturdy beaks eating nuts.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
While studying wildlife on the Galapagos Islands
[Darwin] noticed that the Galapagos finches showed wide variations - eg in beak
shape and size - from island to island. Darwin deduced that these differences
made the finches better adapted to take advantage of the food in their
particular local environment - thin, sharp beaks prevailing where the birds'
main food was insects and grubs, and large claw-shaped beaks where their diet
was buds, fruit and nuts. In each locality the finch population had somehow
developed beaks which were suitable for that particular environment.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Darwin concluded that in each locality one or more individual finch
happened to acquire, by random mutation, a beak shape more suitable for the
food sources in that locality. These individuals then had a competitive
advantage over their fellow finches, enabling them to grow and reproduce more
successfully, and pass on their more specialized beaks to successive
generations - until eventually the characteristic had spread throughout the
finch population in that locality.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Finch
Beak Data Sheet
Peter and Rosemary Grant spent years observing, tagging, and measuring Galapagos finches and
their environment. During that time they documented environmental changes and
how these changes favored certain individuals within the population. Those
individuals survived and passed their characteristics on to the next
generation, illustrating natural selection in action.
Credits: Peter R. Grant; Ecology
and Evolution of Darwin's Finches. Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University
Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
Words defined:
adaptation:
Any heritable characteristic of an organism that improves its ability to
survive and reproduce in its environment. Also used to describe the process of
genetic change within a population, as influenced by natural selection
Darwin,
Charles: The 19th-century naturalist considered the father of evolution.
His landmark work, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859,
presented a wealth of facts supporting the idea of evolution and proposed a
viable theory for how evolution occurs -- via the mechanism Darwin called
"natural selection." In addition to his prolific work in biology,
Darwin also published important works on coral reefs and on the geology of the
Andes, and a popular travelogue of his five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle.
natural selection:
The differential survival and reproduction of classes of organisms that differ
from one another in one or more usually heritable characteristics. Through this
process, the forms of organisms in a population that are best adapted to their
local environment increase in frequency relative to less well-adapted forms
over a number of generations. This difference in survival and reproduction is
not due to chance.
niche:
The ecological role of a species; the set of resources it consumes and habitats
it occupies.
trait: A
characteristic or condition.
Finch Beak Data Sheet:
Few people have the tenacity of ecologists Peter and
Rosemary Grant, willing to spend part of each year since 1973 in a
tent on a tiny, barren volcanic island in the Galapagos. Even fewer would have
the patience to catch, weigh, measure, and identify hundreds of small birds and
record their diets of seeds.
But for the Grants, the rewards have been great:
They have done nothing less than witness Darwin's theory of evolution unfold before
their eyes. That would have stunned Darwin, who thought natural selection operated over vast
periods of time and couldn't be observed.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
In their natural laboratory, the 100-acre island called Daphne
Major, the Grants and their assistants watched the struggle for survival among
individuals in two species of small birds called Darwin's finches. The struggle
is mainly about food -- different types of seeds -- and the availability of
that food is dramatically influenced by year-to-year weather changes.
The
Grants wanted to find out whether they could see the force of natural selection
at work, judging by which birds survived the changing environment. For the
finches, body size and the size and shape of their beaks are traits that vary in adapting to
environmental niches or changes in those niches. Body and
beak variation occurs randomly. The birds with the best-suited bodies and beaks
for the particular environment survive and pass along the successful adaptation from one generation to another
through natural selection.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Natural selection at its most powerful winnowed certain finches
harshly during a severe drought in 1977. That year, the vegetation withered.
Seeds of all kinds were scarce. The small, soft ones were quickly exhausted by
the birds, leaving mainly large, tough seeds that the finches normally ignore.
Under these drastically changing conditions, the struggle to survive favored
the larger birds with deep, strong beaks for opening the hard seeds.
Smaller
finches with less-powerful beaks perished.
So the birds that were the winners
in the game of natural selection lived to reproduce. The big-beaked finches
just happened to be the ones favored by the particular set of conditions Nature
imposed that year.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Now the next step: evolution. The Grants found that the
offspring of the birds that survived the 1977 drought tended to be larger, with
bigger beaks. So the adaptation to a changed environment led to a larger-beaked
finch population in the following generation.
Adaptation can go either way,
of course. As the Grants later found, unusually rainy weather in 1984-85
resulted in more small, soft seeds on the menu and fewer of the large, tough
ones. Sure enough, the birds best adapted to eat those seeds because of their
smaller beaks were the ones that survived and produced the most offspring.
Evolution had cycled back the other direction.
Write a one to three
sentence summary of that paragraph:
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
In your own words describe natural selection. How does this
study show natural selection?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Differentiated Notes Sheet
Name: _______________ Date: ___________ Class
Period: __________________
LT: I can describe the Theory of Evolution
Darwin’s Finches
On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean,
close to the equator, there are a variety of different finches, which
vary in the shape and size of their beaks. It appears
that the finches colonized the Islands from mainland South America,
and then diverged in form. The distance between the islands meant that the
finches on different islands could not interbreed, so the populations on the
different island tended to become distinct. Different populations also became
specialized for different food sources, birds with thin, sharp beaks eating
insects and birds with large, sturdy beaks eating nuts.
Where did the finches colonize the Islands from?
Different populations
became specialized for….
_________________________________________________________________________________
While studying wildlife on the Galapagos Islands
[Darwin] noticed that the Galapagos finches showed wide variations - eg in beak
shape and size - from island to island. Darwin deduced that these differences
made the finches better adapted to take advantage of the food in their
particular local environment - thin, sharp beaks where the birds' main food was
insects and grubs, and large claw-shaped beaks where their diet was buds, fruit
and nuts. In each locality the finch population had somehow developed beaks which
were suitable for that particular environment.
Galapagos finches
showed…..
____________________________________________________________________________
Thin sharp beaks where the main food was….
Large claw shaped beaks
where their diet was…..
________________________________________________________________________________
Darwin concluded that in each location one or more individual finch
happened to acquire, by random mutation, a beak shape more suitable for the
food sources in that locality. These individuals then had a competitive
advantage over their fellow finches, enabling them to grow and reproduce more
successfully, and pass on their more specialized beaks to successive
generations - until eventually the characteristic had spread throughout the
finch population in that locality.
In each location one or
more individual finches happened to acquire….
____________________________________________________________________________
Individuals with a
competitive advantage over their fellow finches enabled them to…..
___________________________________________________________________________
Finch
Beak Data Sheet
Peter and Rosemary Grant spent years observing, tagging, and measuring Galapagos finches and
their environment. During that time they documented environmental changes and
how these changes favored certain individuals within the population. Those
individuals survived and passed their characteristics on to the next
generation, illustrating natural selection in action.
Credits: Peter R. Grant; Ecology
and Evolution of Darwin's Finches. Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University
Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
Words defined:
Adaptation:
Any heritable characteristic of an organism that improves its ability to
survive and reproduce in its environment. Also used to describe the process of
genetic change within a population, as influenced by natural selection
Darwin,
Charles: The 19th-century naturalist considered the father of evolution.
His landmark work, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859,
presented a wealth of facts supporting the idea of evolution and proposed a
viable theory for how evolution occurs -- via the mechanism Darwin called
"natural selection." In addition to his prolific work in biology,
Darwin also published important works on coral reefs and on the geology of the
Andes, and a popular travelogue of his five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle.
Natural
selection: The differential survival and reproduction of classes of
organisms that differ from one another in one or more usually heritable
characteristics. Through this process, the forms of organisms in a population
that are best adapted to their local environment increase in frequency relative
to less well-adapted forms over a number of generations. This difference in
survival and reproduction is not due to chance.
Niche:
The ecological role of a species; the set of resources it consumes and habitats
it occupies.
Trait: A
characteristic or condition.
Finch Beak Data Sheet:
Few people have the determination of ecologists Peter and
Rosemary Grant, willing to spend part of each year since 1973 in a
tent on a tiny, barren volcanic island in the Galapagos. Even fewer would have
the patience to catch, weigh, measure, and identify hundreds of small birds and
record their diets of seeds.
But for the Grants, the rewards have been great:
They have done nothing less than witness Darwin's theory of evolution unfold before
their eyes. That would have stunned Darwin, who thought natural selection operated over vast
periods of time and couldn't be observed.
Peter and Rosemary Grant had the patience to…..
They witnessed……
_________________________________________________________________________________
In their natural laboratory, the 100-acre island called Daphne
Major, the Grants and their assistants watched the struggle for survival among
individuals in two species of small birds called Darwin's finches. The struggle
is mainly about food -- different types of seeds -- and the availability of
that food is dramatically influenced by year-to-year weather changes.
The
Grants wanted to find out whether they could see the force of natural selection
at work, judging by which birds survived the changing environment. For the
finches, body size and the size and shape of their beaks are traits that vary in adapting to
environmental niches or changes in those niches. Body and
beak variation occurs randomly. The birds with the best-suited bodies and beaks
for the particular environment survive and pass along the successful adaptation from one generation to another
through natural selection.
The Grants watched the struggle for survival among individuals. The
struggle is mainly about….
For the finches, body size
and shape of their beaks are….
___________________________________________________________________________
Natural selection at its most powerful killed certain finches
harshly during a severe drought in 1977. That year, the vegetation withered.
Seeds of all kinds were scarce. The small, soft ones were quickly exhausted by
the birds, leaving mainly large, tough seeds that the finches normally ignore.
Under these drastically changing conditions, the struggle to survive favored
the larger birds with deep, strong beaks for opening the hard seeds.
Smaller
finches with less-powerful beaks perished.
The birds that were the winners in
the game of natural selection lived to reproduce. The big-beaked finches just
happened to be the ones favored by the particular set of conditions Nature
imposed that year.
In 1977, the vegetation withered. The struggle to survive favored…
Smaller finches with less
powerful beaks perished. The birds that were the winners…
________________________________________________________________________________
Now the next step: evolution. The Grants found that the
offspring of the birds that survived the 1977 drought tended to be larger, with
bigger beaks. So the adaptation to a changed environment led to a larger-beaked
finch population in the following generation.
Adaptation can go either way,
of course. As the Grants later found, unusually rainy weather in 1984-85
resulted in more small, soft seeds on the menu and fewer of the large, tough
ones. Sure enough, the birds best adapted to eat those seeds because of their
smaller beaks were the ones that survived and produced the most offspring.
Evolution had cycled back the other direction.
Offspring of the birds
that survived the 1977 drought tended to be….
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
What is natural selection? How the finches show evolution?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
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