Learning Exercise

Evolution Tutorial

This website goes through different topics on evolution. For each topic there are several animations/videos that help students understand the concept.

Course: 7th Grade Life Science

Material:: Evolution Tutorial
Date last modified:: May 14, 2007
Created by:: Navjot Gill
License:

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Evolution Tutorial

PBS has this great website that allows students to go through different animations that help them visualize the... see more

Material Type:: Animation

Exercise

Evolution Computer Tutorial http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ Directions 1. Click on the picture of Darwin 2. Look to the right at the different activities you can select 3. Choose: An Origin of Species 4. Read the page and click on the arrow when you are ready to move on 5. Answer the following questions: Questions: 1. What species of bird is the first page showing? 2. What is causing these birds to move into different environments? 3. Click on the different time periods on the timeline and concentrate on the birds on the mainland. What new trait did these birds develop because of their change in environment? (You are done with this tutorial following the next set of directions.) Directions: 1. Find the whale at the top of the page and click on it. 2. Choose: All in the Family 3. Answer the following questions. Questions: 1. What was Charles Darwin¡¦s revolutionary idea? 2. What amazing theory does the second page talk about? Where did all living things come from? 3. Which species is most closely related to the other dolphin, shark, or wolf? Why? Directions: 1. Find the fossil at the top of the page and click on it. 2. Choose: What Killed the Dinosaurs? 3. Answer the following questions. Questions: 1. How long ago did dinosaurs rule the Earth? When did they become extinct? 2. List the four different theories on what might have happened to the dinosaurs. 3. Go through the animation of each theory. 4. What theory do you think might be true? Why? Directions: 1. Find the green picture of the sea creature and click on it. 2. Choose: Coral Reef Connections 3. Answer the following questions: Questions: 1. What is coral reef? 2. Click on Reef Front Zone 3. Name the predators in that zone. 4. You can just look the other zones if you like. Directions: 1. Find the picture of the peacock at the top of the page and click on it. 2. Choose: Sex and the Single Guppy 3. Answer the following questions: Questions: 1. What are some of the factors that are changing the guppy populations (there are 3.) 2. Find ¡§simulation¡¨ on the bottom right of the screen and click on it. 3. Run the simulation for about three minutes and then click on ¡§stop simulation¡¨ 4. What guppy was eaten the most? Why? Directions: 1. Click on the picture next to the peacock (peach looking thing.) 2. Choose: Origins of Mankind 3. Answer the following questions. Questions: 1. How many million years ago did the first human like ancestors appear? 2. Find ¡§species gallery¡¨ at the bottom of the window and click on it. 3. Observe all the fossils that have been found of our ancestors. 4. Which letter represents our species? What is our species name? Directions: 1. If you are interested, you can click on the picture with the clouds and learn more on how religion is related to evolution. You are done with this tutorial. I hope this computer tutorial has given you a better understanding of evolution. º

Disciplines

Science and Technology

Audience

Middle School

Requirements

Students need to have an understanding of Evolution.

Topics

Darwin, Change, Sex, Religion, Extinction, Survival, Humans

Type of Task

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to explain the following: 1. Both environmental conditions and genetic combinations help cause the evolution or changes in a species and the diversity or organisms on Earth. 2. Plants and animals are adapted to their environment. This means they have inherited characteristics that help them survive and reproduce in their environment. 3. If the environment changes and a species is not able to adapt to those changes, the species will become extinct. This means that there are no more members of this species on the Earth. 4. The Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old. Living things have probably been on Earth for more than 3 billion years. 5. Evidence or the remains of once living things are called fossils. Fossils are very rare. Organisms or their parts may have been trapped in tar, amber, or ice. They may have left a print in mud that became stone. Fossils are usually formed when an organism dies, falls in a streambed, and is covered with sediment that gradually replaces the body or its parts with stone. 6. One can tell the approximate age of a fossil using a process called radioactive dating. 7. Usually, fossils near the top of a geologic formation are younger than those at the bottom. This is because during the rock cycle new sediment and rocks are found in layers with the oldest at the bottom. 8. To support the ideas of evolution scientists compare the fossils, structures, DNA, and embryos of different living things to find similarities and differences. 9. Charles Darwin was a British scientist who traveled around the world at the age of twenty-one on Her Majesties Ship ( H M S) Beagle. He collected studied, and compared thousands of plants and animals especially from the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America. Darwin wrote a book about his research called On the Origin of the Species and in it discussed his main ideas on natural selection. 10. Natural selection happens when organisms best adapted to their environment survive and reproduce. 11. One idea of natural selection states that each organism and species produce more offspring than will survive to adulthood. Because of a lack of natural resources (food, water, space, etc.) not all young will live to adulthood. 12. Another idea of natural selection states each organism within a species has a different set of genetic traits from all other members. Some traits or variations help the organism to survive and reproduce while others may decrease its ability to survive and reproduce. 13. Also, an idea of natural selection states organisms that survive to adulthood are better adapted to survive in their environment. Organisms that do not survive to adulthood are less adapted to survive in their environment. So organisms that live to reproduce pass their young.

Assessment

Students will be assessed after the whole evolution unit is complete.