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Overview: Students learn why evolution is at the heart of a world health threat by investigating the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance in such menacing diseases as tuberculosis. Author/Source: WGBH Grade level: 13-16 Time: One to three class periods. Teaching tips: Use this resource to relate evolutionary concepts to the topic of Eubacteria (or get more suggestions for incorporating evolution throughout your biology syllabus). This activity could serve as a lecture extension and might be good as a take home assignment or as assigned group work outside of class. Concepts: Correspondence to the Next Generation Science Standards is indicated in parentheses after each relevant concept. See our conceptual framework for details. Evolution results from natural selection acting upon genetic variation within a population. Natural selection and genetic drift act on the variation that exists in a population. Natural selection acts on phenotype as an expression of genotype. New heritable traits can result from mutations. Mutation is a random process. 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. Natural selection can act on the variation in a population in different ways. A hallmark of science is exposing ideas to testing. Scientists test their ideas using multiple lines of evidence. Scientists use multiple research methods (experiments, observational research, comparative research, and modeling) to collect data. Scientists can test ideas about events and processes long past, very distant, and not directly observable. 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. Teacher background: Genetic Variation Natural Selection Relevance

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