UC Berkeley
Found 19 resources for:
Teach about phylogeny
Classification and Evolution
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- Gendron, Robert
Resource type:
- Lab activity
Time: Two class periods.
Overview
Students construct an evolutionary tree of imaginary animals (Caminalcules) to illustrate how modern classification schemes attempt to reflect evolutionary history.
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Evo in the News: A new look at dinosaur fossils pushes back the evolution of feathered wings
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Evo in the News article
Time: 20 minutes
Overview
This news brief, from November 2012, describes what a new dinosaur fossil from North America has to tell us about the evolution of feathers.
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Evo in the news: Evolutionary evidence takes the stand
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Evo in the News article
Time: 20 minutes
Overview
This news brief, from January of 2007, describes the role of phylogenetic evidence in a Libyan court case. Six medical workers have been convicted of injecting children with HIV-tainted blood - but the evolutionary history of the virus paints a different picture.
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Evo in the news: The new shrew that’s not
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Evo in the News article
Time: 20 minutes
Overview
This news brief from March of 2008 describes scientists' discovery of a new mammal species, a giant elephant shrew. Though elephant shrews resemble regular shrews, recent genetic evidence suggests that elephant shrews actually sprang from a much older (and perhaps more charismatic) branch of the tree of life - the one belonging to elephants and their relatives.
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Evolution and Phylogenetic Analysis
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
Source:
- Wilfred A. Franklin
Resource type:
- Lab activity
Time: Two 3-hour sessions
Overview
In a flexible multisession laboratory, students investigate concepts of phylogenetic analysis at both the molecular and the morphological level. Students finish by conducting their own analysis on a collections skeletons using the Mesquite software.
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How boogieing birds evolved: The work of Kim Bostwick
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Research profile
Time: 30 minutes
Overview
This research profile follows ornithologist Kim Bostwick through the jungles of Ecuador and the halls of museums as she investigates the evolution of an exotic bird's complex mating dance.
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Investigating Common Descent: Formulating Explanations and Models
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- National Academy of Sciences
Resource type:
- Classroom activity
Time: Two class periods
Overview
Students formulate explanations and models that simulate structural and biochemical data as they investigate the misconception that humans evolved from apes.
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Phylogenetic systematics, a.k.a. evolutionary trees
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
- Advanced
- General
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Tutorial
Time: 20 minutes
Overview
Learn about phylogenetic systematics, the study of the evolutionary relationships among organisms, and how the field is shaping biological research today.
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Phylogenetics and tree thinking slide set
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
Time: 2 minutes
Overview
This set of five PowerPoint slides featuring personal response questions (i.e., multiple choice questions that can be used with "clicker" technology) can be incorporated into lectures on the mechanisms of evolution in order to actively engage students in thinking about evolution.
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Phylogenetics laboratory: Reconstructing evolutionary history
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
Source:
- Kefyn Catley and Laura Novick
Resource type:
- Lab activity
Time: 3 hours
Overview
By examining specimens, students fill in a data matrix of animal taxa and complete exercises to learn about synapomorphies, mapping characters on a phylogeny, and assessing parsimony.
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The great clade race: Zombie Edition
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- Martindale, Rowan and Goldsmith, David
Resource type:
- Classroom activity
Time: 30-50 minutes
Overview
This activity uses a simple puzzle to get students to use cladistic thinking without bogging them down with terminology.
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Tree thinking basics
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
Resource type:
- Video
Time: 6 minutes
Overview
Tree thinking, or phylogenetics, is an important way of understanding evolutionary relationships. Reading trees correctly can pose some challenges. This video introduces the basics of three reading and addresses common problems in tree reading.
This resource is available from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
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Tree thinking challenges
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
Resource type:
- Video
Time: 10 minutes
Overview
In the this interactive video, college students guide viewers through problems on phylogenetics and address some of the misconceptions that many students have with the subject.
This resource is available from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
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Two- and ten-minute trees
Grade Level(s):
- 3-5
- 6-8
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Classroom activity
Time: 2-10 minutes
Overview
Use these quick and simple classroom activities to better develop your students' tree-thinking skills. Each takes just a few minutes and helps reinforce key ideas about tree reading and common ancestry.
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Understanding evolutionary history: An introduction to tree thinking
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
- General
Source:
- Laura Novick, Kefyn Catley, and Emily Schreiber
Resource type:
- Tutorial
Time: 30 min - 1 hour
Overview
This pamphlet with self-quizzes provides students with a self-paced tutorial in tree thinking and corrects many common misconceptions about phylogenetic trees.
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Understanding evolutionary trees
Grade Level(s):
- 13-16
- Advanced
- General
Source:
- Evolution: Education and Outreach
Resource type:
- Article
Time: 30 minutes
Overview
Many disciplines within biology (and many basic biology texts) have come to depend on evolutionary trees. Get the basics you need to understand and interpret these key diagrams.
This article appears at SpringerLink.
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Using pipe cleaners to bring the Tree of Life to life
Grade Level(s):
- 6-8
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- American Biology Teacher
Resource type:
- Classroom activity
Time: 15 minutes
Overview
Students build a phylogenetic tree from pipe cleaners that allows them to rotate branches, compare topologies, map complete lineages, identify informative phylogenetic features, and examine the effects of superficial structural changes on the tree.
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Using trees to uproot HIV: The work of Satish Pillai
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
- Advanced
- General
Source:
- UC Museum of Paleontology
Resource type:
- Research profile
Time: 30 minutes
Overview
This research profile follows scientist Satish Pillai as he studies the evolution of HIV within infected individuals. His research uses the tools of phylogenetics to investigate vaccine development and the possibility of curing the disease.
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What does it mean to be human?
Grade Level(s):
- 9-12
- 13-16
Source:
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Resource type:
- Classroom activity
Time: 8 x 50-minute class periods
Overview
In this set of advanced lessons, students use different types of data to infer/interpret phylogenies among domains, within the vertebrates, and within primates while reflecting on how they answer the question "What do you think it means to be human?" and choose a characteristic that changed substantially in the human family tree to develop a scientific argument based on evidence for when the character evolved.
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