Understanding Evolution

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Understanding Evolution

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Found 15 resources for:
genotype phenotype

Adaptation to altitude

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16

Source:

  • Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: Eight 50-minute class periods

Overview

In this set of sequenced lessons, students learn how to devise an experiment to test the difference between acclimation and adaptation; investigate how scientific arguments show support for natural selection in Tibetans; design an investigation using a simulation based on the Hardy-Weinberg principle to explore mechanisms of evolution; and devise a test for whether other groups of people have adapted to living at high altitudes.

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Allele and phenotype frequencies in rock pocket mouse populations

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16

Source:

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: One or two class 50-minute periods

Overview

This video and worksheet use real rock pocket mouse data collected by Dr. Michael Nachman and his colleagues to illustrate the Hardy-Weinberg principle.

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Aloha, spider style! The work of Rosemary Gillespie

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Research profile

Time: one class period

Overview

This research profile follows Dr. Rosemary Gillespie to Hawaii as she evaluates hypotheses about the evolution of the colorful happy-face spider.

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Artificial Selection with Elaine Ostrander and Team

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Advanced

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: 1 hr

Overview

In this article (and the linked assignments and student readings), students examine and interpret data that the team used to study the genes undergoing artificial selection during the development of different dog breeds. Use the tabs at the bottom of the feature to find related videos, assignments, and lessons to build this example into a lesson sequence on artificial selection.

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Smiling white woman holding dog

Evo in the News: Grasshoppers change their tune. Is it evolution in action?

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16
  • Advanced

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 20 minutes

Overview

This news brief, from December 2012, describes new research into how traffic noise affects insect populations. Several hypotheses to explain the change in grasshoppers' songs are examined.

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Evolución 101

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Article

Overview

¿Qué es la evolución y cómo funciona? Introducción a la evolución ofrece información detallada y práctica sobre los patrones y los mecanismos de la evolución.

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A three "step" illustration. The first "step" (left) shows a population of three green and three brown beetles. The second "step" (middle) shows a bird eating one of the green beetles in the population. The third "step" (right) shows a population of one green and five brown beetles.

Evolution of human skin color

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16

Source:

  • Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: Seven to ten 50 minute class periods

Overview

Students examine evidence for the relationship between UV and melanin in other animals; investigate the genetic basis for constitutive skin color humans; learn to test for natural selection in mouse fur color; investigate how interactions between UV and skin color in humans can affect fitness; and explore data on migrations and gene frequency to show convergent evolution of skin color.

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High altitude adaptations: The work of Emilia Huerta-Sánchez

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16
  • Advanced

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Research profile

Time: 30 minutes

Overview

This research profile follows statistician and population geneticist Emilia Huerta-Sánchez as she studies the adaptations that allow Tibetan highlanders to live 13,000 feet above sea level without developing altitude sickness.

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Natural selection and evolution of rock pocket mouse populations

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16

Source:

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: 50 minutes

Overview

This lesson serves as an extension to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute short film The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation. It provides an opportunity for students to analyze amino acid data and draw conclusions about the evolution of coat-color phenotypes in the rock pocket mouse.

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Natural selection from the gene up: The work of Elizabeth Dahlhoff and Nathan Rank

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Advanced

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Research profile

Time: 30 minutes

Overview

Find out how we investigate evolutionary adaptations by following two scientists and their team as they figure out how the willow leaf beetle survives in different climates.

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Problem-based discussion: Population genetics calculations and Hardy Weinberg

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Slide set

Time: 5-20 minutes

Overview

This set of two PowerPoint slides featuring questions for problem-based discussion (i.e., open-ended questions that engage students with each other and with course material) can be easily incorporated into lectures on populations genetics.

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Stickleback Evolution Virtual Lab

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16

Source:

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Resource type:

  • Online activity or lab

Time: 3 hours

Overview

This virtual lab teaches skills of data collection and analysis to study evolutionary processes using stickleback fish and fossil specimens.

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The Beetle Project: Investigating insects in a warming world

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Lab activity

Time: 30 min to 10 class periods

Overview

This adaptable instructional module uses insects as a model system to illustrate the biological impacts of climate change, with the goal of engaging students with a range of hands-on and minds-on activities that increase their understanding of how science works, evolutionary processes, and the impacts of climate change.

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Students working on beetle lab activity

The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaption

Grade Level(s):

  • 6-8
  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Student

Source:

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Resource type:

  • Video

Time: 10 minutes

Overview

This 10-minute film describes the research of Dr. Michael Nachman and colleagues, whose work in the field and in the lab has documented and quantified physical and genetic evolutionary changes in rock pocket mouse populations.

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The Making of the Fittest: The Birth and Death of Genes

Grade Level(s):

  • 6-8
  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Student

Source:

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Resource type:

  • Video

Time: 15-20 minutes

Overview

This 13-minute film describes how scientists have pieced together the evolutionary history of the Antarctic icefish by studying its genome – an excellent case study for genetic evolution as both the gain and loss of genes have led to key adaptations.

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