Understanding Evolution

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Found 10 resources for:
Teach about mutation

Evo in the news: A chink in HIV’s evolutionary armor

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 20 minutes

Overview

Medical researchers have spent billions of dollars and many decades trying to develop an HIV vaccine but have, thus far, failed. Why is an HIV vaccine so elusive? This news brief from March 2007 explains how HIV's rapid rate of evolution challenges medicine and describes a new discovery that may allow vaccine developers to sidestep that evolution.

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Evo in the news: A fish of a different color

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 15 minutes

Overview

This news brief, from February 2006, describes how a mutated zebrafish gene may help us understand human evolution and the genes underlying human skin color. Humans and zebrafish both inherited the same pigmentation gene from their common ancestor.

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Evo in the news: Evolution at the scene of the crime

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 15 minutes

Overview

This news brief, from March 2006, describes how DNA fingerprinting is being used to prosecute and exonerate the accused. DNA fingerprinting relies on the processes of mutation and genome evolution.

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Evo in the news: Evolution in the fast lane?

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Advanced
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 20 minutes

Overview

Have humans, with all of our technological advances, exempted ourselves from further evolution? Perhaps not. This news brief, from February 2008, examines genetic research which suggests that human evolution may haved actually accelerated in our recent history.

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Evo in the news: Got lactase?

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Advanced
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 20 minutes

Overview

The ability to digest milk is a recent evolutionary innovation that has spread through some human populations. This news brief from April 2007 describes how evolution has allowed different human populations to take advantage of the nutritional possibilities of dairying and links evolution with the prevalence of lactose tolerance among people of different ethnicities.

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Evo in the news: Hotspots for evolution

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 15 minutes

Overview

Why are there so many different species in the tropics? This news brief, from June 2006, suggests why: warmer weather may be linked to a quicker pace for evolution.

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Evo in the news: Seeing the tree for the twigs

Grade Level(s):

  • 9-12
  • 13-16
  • Advanced
  • General

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Evo in the News article

Time: 15 minutes

Overview

Recent research has revealed that, in at least some ways, chimpanzees have evolved more than humans have. This news brief from May 2007 delves into this finding further and, in the process, debunks common misperceptions of human evolution.

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Pea taste

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16

Source:

  • Evo-Ed

Resource type:

  • Case study

Time: One to two class periods

Overview

This case study in the form of a set of PowerPoint slides examines the evolution of the wrinkled pea from its ancestral round pea shape.

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The causes of mutation with Molly Przeworski and Felix Wu

Grade Level(s):

  • 13-16
  • Advanced

Source:

  • UC Museum of Paleontology

Resource type:

  • Classroom activity

Time: 1.5 hours

Overview

In this article (and the linked assignments and student readings), students examine and interpret data that Molly and Felix used to study the causes of mutations that matter most for evolution. 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 mutation.

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Molly Przeworski

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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