Week 8: Trait Tracing

  

Week 8: Trait Tracing 


What questions were we investigating?

Why do organisms have so many similarities, yet so many differences? How do organisms get their traits?

What did we do to investigate these questions?

This week in lab we investigated the rock pocket mouse's fur color trait. To begin as a class we discussed and went through vocabulary that we will be using in this lesson as well as the ones to come such as adaptation, natural selection, mutation, and evolution. In our groups we looked at two different graphs showing rock pocket mice population in certain areas. The two pictures showed a different amount of black furred mice, as a group we had to make a claim as to why we believed there were more or less black furred mice in one area over time. Later we would find evidence to back our claim. 

We then dug deeper into our observations after we were given pictures of the environments and population of mice in those environments at the time. We were told to put our pictures in order of what we thought they were over time. We then shared with the big group what we thought our claim was and our evidence to back it up. We then watched a short documentary segment as a class that shared information about rock pocket mice, natural selection, and their survival in the dark lava area vs. the light sanded area. And how this mutation in the darker fur has affected their survival rate.


A question that I still have would be broader focused on mutations and their impacts on environments, and if mutations can eventually become more common, and if they will still at that point be called a mutation? 

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