Classroom Resources

In this activity, students collect and analyze evidence for each of the major conditions for evolution by natural selection to develop an explanation for how populations change over time.

This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that tested how effectively mimicry protects arthropods against different types of predators.

This activity explores the evidence that differences in human skin color are adaptations to varying intensity of UV light, as discussed in the short film The Biology of Skin Color.

This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that tested how individual fish responded to an artificial model of a fish school.

In this case study, students explore the story of the evolution of lactase persistence based on the short film Making of the Fittest: Got Lactase? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture and makes connections between genotype, phenotype, and culture using graphical analysis skills.

In this activity, students formulate a hypothesis and collect and analyze real research data about how quickly natural selection can act on specific traits in a population as a result of predation. It is accompanied by a short video that describes the experiment this activity is based on.

In this activity, students collect and analyze data from a hands-on model to discover why even slight variations in beak size can impact a bird’s ability to obtain food and survive.

In this activity, students analyze and graph data taken from a population of Galápagos finches before and after a major drought.

This activity explores the concepts and research on the anole lizards discussed in the short film The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, including adaptation by natural selection, convergent evolution, and the formation of new species.

This activity explores the concepts and research presented in the short film The Origin of Species: The Beak of the Finch, which documents the main findings from four decades of investigations on the evolution of the Galápagos finches.

This activity explores physical and genetic evolutionary changes in rock pocket mouse populations, as discussed in the short film The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation.

This activity explores the research presented in the short film The Making of the Fittest: The Birth and Death of Genes, which illustrates how gene duplications and mutations have allowed some fish to adapt to extreme environments.