Voyage of the Beagle Darwin’s Reasoning for Natural Selection

First Station: You will see 3 examples of living organisms. Write what you observe on each slide in the space provided on your handout, then write what pattern you observe and why you think you see this pattern…

First Station: SLIDE #1 This is a sunflower with a close-up of the seeds on one flower. Approximately, how many seeds do you see on the one flower?

First Station: SLIDE #2 400 eggs Drosophila melanogaster are fruit flies. Each female can lay 400 eggs, which hatch after 12 hours.

First Station: SLIDE #3 Bacteria, like E. coli, can reproduce by binary fission at a fast rate. CLICK THE LINK! Watch the movie! (you might need to exit the slideshow and click on the internet window…)

Second Station: We’re watching you. Stop goofing off! ;)

Second Station: Here is a litter of kittens; what variability exists?

Second Station: Their fatherTheir mother

Second Station: These zebra finches are siblings.

Second Station: The fatherThe mother

Third Station: Here, a herd of zebras is running. Describe how they look as a group. (Hint: notice the effect of the stripes when the zebras are so close together…)

Third Station: When the lion hunts the zebra, she isolates one to chase. She has trouble singling out one zebra from a running herd, due to the stripes.

Third Station: Special zebra mutations:

Third Station:

Fourth Station: Flipbook This is a type of insect called a grub. Individuals of this species come in two sizes, big and small. Each individual can make 2 babies each breeding cycle. Watch what happens to them in two different environments.

Fourth Station: FIRST SCENARIO

Do you see the trend that has formed? What will happen to this population of grubs?

Fourth Station: SECOND SCENARIO

Do you see the trend that has formed? What will happen to this population of grubs?

Natural Selection in Action Interactive Natural Selection Demonstration: cy/darwin/darwin.html cy/darwin/darwin.html Read the information, play the game (can you survive, or will you go extinct?), then try to pass the quiz – try to get them all right!