Read/post comments Be the first to rate this resource! To rate this resource, click a star: Answer the security question: 2 + 3 =

Overview: Students use what they know about evolution and medicine to review an article written for a school publication. The task is to identify errors, explain the incorrect statements, and correct the information. They then explain the process of natural selection by creating a labeled illustration using one of the examples from an earlier lesson. Author/Source: National Institutes of Health Grade level: 13-16 Time: 1 hour Teaching tips: This lesson is set up as a group work assignment.  However, it could be used as an individual assignment in a smaller class.  Students will need some background knowledge on enzyme function, genetics, molecular genetics, and cladistics/evolutionary trees. Concepts: Correspondence to the Next Generation Science Standards is indicated in parentheses after each relevant concept. See our conceptual framework for details. Present-day species evolved from earlier species; the relatedness of organisms is the result of common ancestry. Similarities among existing organisms (including morphological, developmental, and molecular similarities) reflect common ancestry and provide evidence for evolution. Not all similar traits are homologous; some are the result of convergent evolution. Evolution results from natural selection acting upon genetic variation within a population. Inherited characteristics affect the likelihood of an organism's survival and reproduction. Over time, the proportion of individuals with advantageous characteristics may increase (and the proportion with disadvantageous characteristics may decrease) due to their likelihood of surviving and reproducing. Traits that confer an advantage may persist in the population and are called adaptations. An individual’s fitness (or relative fitness) is the contribution that individual makes to the gene pool of the next generation relative to other individuals in the population. An organism’s fitness depends on both its survival and its reproduction. As with other scientific disciplines, evolutionary biology has applications that factor into everyday life, for example in agriculture, biodiversity and conservation biology, and medicine and health. Evolutionary trees (i.e., phylogenies or cladograms) portray hypotheses about evolutionary relationships. Teacher background: Classification/Phylogenetics Natural Selection

<< Back to search results