• In the first activity, students hypothesize and discuss why animals have certain traits, then use the fossil record to examine how the structure of a giraffe’s neck provides an adaptive function.
  • In the second activity, students experience first-hand how different characteristics can provide an advantage to individuals by “eating” with distinct “beaks,” graph and analyze this data, and apply their results to explain the effects of adaptations. There are two parts to this activity that can be done together or independently.
  • In the third activity, students explore and discuss how different events affect populations, using graphs and of their results to explain the effects of selection.
  • In the fourth activity, students use a card game to explore types of adaptations that plants have evolved to survive environmental challenges, apply this knowledge to technologies humans have used in agriculturally and medicinally important plants, and evaluate infographics to explore how scientific information is communicated.
Adaptation and Evolution Box: All Activities Teacher Version
Adaptation and Evolution Box: All Activities Student Version

Adaptation Introduction

Students hypothesize and discuss why animals have certain traits, then use the fossil record to examine how the structure of a giraffe’s neck provides an adaptive function.

In this activity, students will:

  • evaluate fossil records to determine patterns and evaluate evidence.
  • recognize the impact of the environment on structure and how this relationship affects organism ability to survive and reproduce.
  • engage in discussion where they can ask questions, defend their interpretations, and work collaboratively.
  • determine how changes in structure can impact function.
  • identify cause and effect relationships and provide evidence for these relationships.

South Carolina Standards are below. NGSS Standards are included in the teacher version.

  • 8-LS4-1 Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operated in the past as they do today.
  • 8-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer their ancestral relationships.
Adaptation Introduction Teacher Version
Adaptation Introduction Student Version

Additional resources:

Birds and Their Beaks

Students experience first-hand how different characteristics can provide an advantage to individuals by “eating” with distinct “beaks,” graph and analyze this data, and apply their results to explain the effects of adaptations on changes in the ecosystem or environment. This activity has two parts, which can be done together or independently.

In these two activities, students will:

  • recognize and explain the interaction between the environment and an organism’s traits.

  • explain how some traits increase some individuals probability of surviving.

  • graph data and recognize patterns across multiple repetitions.

  • recognize and explain the interaction between the environment and an organism’s traits to produce variable amounts of fitness.

  • describe a phenotype (structure) that provides an advantage in function in a particular environment.

  • understand how phenotypic traits can impact survival.

  • graph repeated class data and recognize patterns in the data.

  • apply concepts of structure and function to real-life examples.

South Carolina Standards are below. NGSS Standards are included in the teacher version.

  • 8-LS4-4 Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individual’s probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
  • 8-LS4-4 Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time. 
Birds and Their Beaks Teacher Version
Birds and Their Beaks Student Version

Additional resources:

  • student version in Spanish (coming soon)

Selection

Students explore and discuss how different events affect populations of beetles, using graphs and their results to explain the effects of selection.

In this activity, students will:

  • create visualizations of their data to better identify patterns, share their visualizations, and compare strengths and weaknesses of evidence resulting from visualized data.

  • use computational thinking to generate explanations using their population data to explain changes in genetic variation after a series of events.

  • recognize the impact of environmental events, including those influenced by human activity, on the frequency of phenotypes.

  • identify cause and effect relationships for the beetles that survived and did not survive specific events and provide evidence for these relationships.

South Carolina Standards are below. NGSS Standards are included in the teacher version.

  • 8-LS4-4 Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individual’s probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.
  • 8-LS4-6 Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.
  • 7-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment. 
Selection Teacher Version
Selection Student Version

Additional resources:

  • student version in Spanish (coming soon)
  • selection events cards in Spanish (coming soon)

Plants and humans

Students use a card game to explore types of adaptations that plants have evolved to survive environmental challenges, apply this knowledge to technologies humans have used in agriculturally and medicinally important plants, and evaluate infographics to explore how scientific information is communicated.

In this activity, students will:

  • make starting inferences regarding how plant adaptations support survival in some challenging conditions while not lending benefit in others.
  • encounter examples of how humans have influenced the inheritance of desired traits in some organisms of agricultural importance and how humans have used some plants for medicinal and therapeutic purposes.
  • explore how scientific information is communicated by evaluating infographics further developing their scientific literacy skills.
  • engage in argumentation regarding how humans use technologies to influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.

South Carolina Standards are below. NGSS Standards are included in the teacher version.

  • 8-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer their ancestral relationships.
  • 8-LS4-5 Gather and synthesize information about technologies that have change the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
Plants and Humans Teacher Version
Plants and Humans Student Version

Additional resources: