Week 9: Natural Selection

 Week 9: Natural Selection


What questions were we investigating?

Why do organisms have so many similarities yet so many differences? 

What did we do to investigate this?

This week in lab we looked at natural selection and how it works through modeling different populations and characteristics of animals within populations. Each group got to pick their materials to come up with a situation in which natural selection was occurring over time. Each group had to ensure that four conditions were present in their model: traits, heredity, differential reproduction, and time. Our group presented the traits through using pasta noodles as our animals. There were two different types of noodles, one was a tube shape that had a hollow center while the other was twisted with no hollow center. The predators were birds with two different types of beaks, the first beak was represented with a spoon, the second was represented with a fork. Heredity was shown in the ability of the tube pasta or twisted pasta trait being passed down through its offspring. Reproduction was shown because the tube pasta animal was getting preyed on more because it was much easier to pick up with the fork and the spoon than the twisted pasta which was only easily picked up with the spoon. Because of this the twisted pasta was able to reproduce and live longer than the tube pasta, allowing their population to grow. We represented time by doing several timed rounds to show what would occur to the population and generations over time. 

By doing this simulation our class was able to visualize what natural selection is through modeling and we all gained tools to use in our future classroom to show children how to model.

A question that I may have is how can we allow students to create a model with more specific examples so there is less confusion, but also give them the space in order to figure out how they have to create a simulation to represent what may occur. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 12: Properties of Matter

Image
 Week 12 Properties of Matter What are we investigating?  How do properties change when objects are broken into pieces? What we did to investigate this? In this lab we explored the properties of matter, we did this by discussing what we noticed about some of the observable physical properties of these objects. We made a list on our white board that included mass, density, malleability, hardness, conductivity, and more. We had ten different objects such as crayons, wood, straws, foil, paperclips, corks, and more. Use materials such as graduated cylinders, a light bulb, and a scale we tested all of our different objects to figure out what was on our list. Each object had a small size and a big size of it that way our tests were more extensive.  We found out many things some of the data was affected by the size of the object, but others were not. We also found out which objects conducted electricity, which were dense, which was malleable, and many more. Majority of our predi...
Read more

Week 2 Lab- Life Cycles

Image
Week 2 Life Cycles What question are we investigating? The questions that we investigated this week were, What do all life cycles have in common? What kinds of structures and functions support a life cycle? What did we do in lab to investigate this question? We did several different activities to investigate these questions in lab beginning with analyzing meal worms. Each group received a petri dish full of mealworms and as a group, we had to try and analyze what part of the life cycle they were at. After doing so, each group was asked to make a life cycle. Our group came up with the cycle beginning with eggs, to larva, to pupa, then to bug or beetle. We observed how the mealworms structure changes and shifts completely throughout its life cycle. We then observed and analyzed Wisconsin fast plants that were in petri dishes at each of the different stages of growth in their cycle. We added that to our life cycle as well along with the mealworms.  What did we figure out? After observ...
Read more

Week 4

Image
  Week 4 Blog: Monarch Butterflies  What question are we investigating? This week we investigated Monarch butterflies, as well as what makes a question "good" according to the NGSS. Our class had several questions about Monarch butterflies such as, how do Monarch butterflies know where to travel, how does the super generation reproduce, and how do they travel so far.  What did we do in lab to investigate this question? We used the acronym KEWL to begin setting up our investigation. Starting with what we know, our evidence, what we want to know, and lastly what we learned. There were 5 different stations set up in the classroom to help us investigate these questions. The first was different diagrams of the butterflies life cycle, the second was parts of real Monarchs under a microscope, the third was looking at the caterpillars, the forth was analyzing the chrysalis, and lastly watching a video of the growing process and looking at learning materials.  Chrysalis Cater...
Read more