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The Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

Introduction to Natural Selection Challenge

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Introduction to Natural Selection Challenge

An 8th grade STEM lesson

Amy Lewis

Jan. 4, 2024

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Notes for teachers

Students should be divided into 2 equal teams.

Team names and captains should be chosen.

There are 3 parts to this lesson.

The Minute to Win It game section. (unfair version)
Learning about Darwin’s Finches and Peppered Moths.
Peppered Moth Game with data collection and graph making.

List of Materials

5 lb. Bag of Rice
32 red Solo Cups
2-7 bean soup mix
Bag of craft puff balls/cotton balls
Blind fold
Serving Spoon
Slotted Spatula
Tweezers
Serving tongs
Chopsticks
Hot mitt
Assortment of blocks or legos
Computers
Graph paper

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Science and Math Standards

8.L4U1.12

Gather and communicate evidence on how the process of natural selection provides an explanation of how new species can evolve.

8.SP.A

Investigate patterns of association in bivariate data.

ELA Standards

8.RI.1

Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

8.RI.2

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.

8.RI.3

Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories).

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Objectives:

Today students will participate in activities that teach about adaptations and their role in individual survival.

Students will be able to define and explain natural selection and provide examples of natural selection.

Students will be able to graph data collected based on environmental conditions and physical features of organisms.

Students will be able to write an explanation about whether an organism will survive with a particular adaptation in nature. They will include what factors would help or harm the individual.

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Agenda

Minute to Win It Games (10-15 min)
Video on Natural Selection and discussion (7 min)
Video Manchester Moths and discussion (7 min)
Moth Game with Data collection and graph construction (20 min)
Final write-up (10 min)

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How do characteristics help organisms survive and change over time?

Divide class into to 2 teams.

Choose a Team Name
Choose a Team Captain.
Select 5 volunteers from each team to be competitors in the games.

Game Instructions Link: Game Instructions

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Lesson Instructions

Darwin’s Finches and Natural Selection Video

Video Link Watch from 0-2:35

Answer some Follow up questions about the video.

Analyze the competitive activity in terms of Natural Selection.

Hands-On Activity:

Follow Up Questions:

Who was Darwin? and what did he study?

Answers may include: Darwin was the Naturalist on board the Beagle. It was on a survey mission around South America. He studied the animals and plants in all the areas visited but he found something interesting at the Galapagos Islands. He collected finches from the Islands and studied them. He found that the beaks of the birds had adapted and changed according to the foods the birds consumed. They had speciated (because isolated on individual islands so had diversified from original mainland finch.

What idea did he come up with and propose in his book?

Answers could include: He proposed the idea of Natural Selection in his book The Origin of Species.

What is Natural Selection?

Possible answers are: The idea he proposed was that organisms that had a specific trait that allowed them to out compete others for a resource were mostly likely to survive and reproduce thus making that trait a more common trait in the population over time.

Based on Darwin’s ideas, which traits would survive the minute to win it games we just completed? Why did you choose that trait?

Write your ideas down in notebook silently for 2 min. Then share in your group. Be prepared as a group to share your thinking with the class.

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Lesson Instructions

Peppered Moth Video

Video Link Watch full video

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Natural Selection Information

Please log in to your computers and click on the link I sent you for more information about Peppered Moths and Natural Selection.
You should get a site with Navigation buttons at the top as shown to the right.

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Natural Selection Information

Using the tab Peppered Moths answer the following questions in your notebooks.

What is the size range for Peppered Moths?
Where do Peppered moths live?
What adaptation on the Peppered moths wings helps them camouflage?

Using the tab Natural Selection answer the following questions in your notebooks.

What change was observed in Peppered moths?
What was the cause of this change?
What is Natural Selection according to this article?

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Natural Selection Game

This simulation allows you to watch natural selection in action. A population of moths will be released in a forest. At the beginning, the population is 50 percent light moths and 50 percent dark. During the simulation, graphs at the bottom will record any changes in the population. The only factor different between the two types of moths is the color of the wings.

Your role in the simulation is that of a predator. Guide the bird with the mouse to the moths. Click on the moth with the mouse to eat the moth. Every time you eat a moth, you will hear the crunch of an exoskeleton.

If you miss the moth, you will hear the bird call. Eat as many moths as possible in the minute you have.

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Natural Selection Game

You will be the predator in both forests.

Draw the following table into your notebook to record your data:

Peppered Moth Game Data

Respond to questions in notebook:

For the most camouflaged moth, when were you able to see them easiest?
Evaluate the graphs given after completion of round. What do you notice about the graphs?
Draw the Graphs in your notebook showing the data at 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 sec. (light and dark moths on the same graph.)

	Total Moths	Forest % light moths	Forest % dark moths
Light Forest
Dark Forest

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Assessment

Formative:

Please answer the following questions:

What did Charles Darwin propose about how species change?
If 2 animals of the same species lived in a green environment. One was brown and one was green, which would most likely be eaten by the predator? What would we notice about this population of organisms over time?

Summative:

Applying what learned to new situation:

Data Nuggets: Feral Chickens Fly the coop

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Differentiation

Video about Natural Selection:

Discovery Education Natural Selection

or

Amoeba Sisters Natural Selection

Graphing Refresh:

Graphing Discovery Education

or

Drawing Line Graphs

Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

Students will create an organism that could be introduced into an existing environment. They should identify and explain the physical features that will allow the new organism to be competitive with other organisms living in the area.

Students should evaluate how this new introduction could affect the populations of organisms that are currently in the area.

Students may need to do some research on invasive species. Here are some article links that may help:

Zebra Mussels and the Hudson River

Short Term impact of Zebra Mussels

Long Term Monitoring