Classroom Resources

This activity supports concepts covered in the film The Making of a Theory. Students develop their nonfiction reading comprehension by analyzing excerpts from texts written by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.

In this activity, students explore single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with different traits in dogs to identify genes associated with those traits.

This interactive, modular lab explores the evolution of the anole lizards in the Caribbean through data collection and analysis.

This activity challenges students to identify observations that Darwin and Wallace made during their travels, as shown in the short film The Origin of Species: The Making of a Theory. Students then evaluate claims about evolution by natural selection based on these observations.

This interactive module allows students to examine fossils of fish, tetrapods (four-limbed animals), and their transitional forms.

This activity reinforces concepts presented in the short film The Making of a Theory. Using a map of the Malay Archipelago and information about the animals found on different islands, students discover the Wallace Line: a sharp boundary that separates distinct Asian and Australian fauna.

This video shows the reactions of first-grade students to a replica of a Tiktaalik fossil.

This activity explores the concepts and research presented in the short film Great Transitions: The Origin of Tetrapods. The film describes the discovery of Tiktaalik, a key fossil that illuminates the evolutionary history of four-legged animals.

This activity supports the viewing of the film The Making of a Theory. Students evaluate and discuss several claims relating to the history and evidence that led to the theory of evolution by natural selection.

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 explore the phenomenon of convergent evolution presented in the short film The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree. They build and interpret phylogenetic trees to infer how certain adaptations evolved among the Anole lizard populations of the Caribbean.

This film describes the discovery of Tiktaalik, a key fossil that illuminates the evolutionary origins of four-legged animals.