Students apply their understanding of adaptations by designing their own organisms to survive in different habitats.

Educators Guide for this unit:
http://education.eol.org/lesson_plans/2-5_Adaptations_LessonOverview.pdf

Lessons in this unit:

Adaptations Activity 1: Adapting to the Environment
Adaptations Activity 2: Physical Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 3: Behavioral Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 4: Go Adapt!
Adaptations Activity 5: Create a Creature

Step outside and discover the diversity of insect life in your neighborhood. Insects are the world’s most diverse group of living things, with over 950,000 identified species and counting. You might think that you’d need to travel to the Amazon to study insects, but they can be found practically everywhere—including right where you happen to be.

Students toss coins to determine what traits a set of mouse parents possess, such as fur color, body size, heat tolerance, and running speed. Then they use coin tossing to determine the traits a mouse pup born to these parents possesses. Then they compare these physical features to features that would be most adaptive in several different environmental conditions. Finally, students consider what would happen to the mouse offspring if those environmental conditions were to change: which mice would be most likely to survive and produce the next generation?

Explore a NetLogo model of populations of rabbits, grass, and weeds. First, adjust the model to start with a different rabbit population size. Then adjust model variables, such as how fast the plants or weeds grow, to get more grass than weeds. Change the amount of energy the grass or weeds provide to the rabbits and the food preference. Use line graphs to monitor the effects of changes you make to the model, and determine which settings affect the proportion of grass to weeds when rabbits eat both.

This 10-minute video lesson continues to discuss the beginnings of life on Earth. It looks at the Cambrian explosion and biodiversity in the Phanerozoic Eon. [Cosmology and Astronomy playlist: Lesson 41 of 85]

Communities are dynamic and change over time, and we can observe this process with particular clarity after a disturbance or on new land. Learn about primary and secondary succession, as well as pioneer species. Created by Sal Khan.

Learn about where diseases come from. How are they spread? This episode examines a variety of emerging wildlife diseases, with an emphasis on the One Health concept. While some disease outbreaks may be “natural”, human behaviors and influences are adding additional pressure on wildlife and the landscape, and in the end, all of us – humans, wildlife, and the environment – are affected. Learn more about the field of emerging wildlife diseases and the continually evolving research on what those diseases tell us.  

After learning about food chains, students practice building food chains and design their own backyard food chains.

Students read an article titled "The Sixth Extinction" by Niles Eldredge on past mass extinctions and the current rate of loss of species. The instructor can choose from a suite of activities which include having students respond to discussion and extension questions about the article, write an essay on the article defending Eldredge's view, create an extinction chart, and debate the actions of stakeholders faced with an endangered species vs. human water needs scenario. Students will need to research additional references to complete the activities and be prepared to defend their positions.

Using this lesson plan students will be more aware of how plants and animals adapt to wildland fire. They will: Discuss the adaptive strategies of plants and animals to survive fire. Observe plants and animals in your local area. Design a plant or animal that is adapted for fire survival.

Students become “experts” and make creative presentations about the different ecological roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers at local and global scales.

Learn about habitat islands and wildlife corridors. Habitat islands are areas of various sizes that should contain all the necessities for a certain species or multiple species of wildlife to survive and thrive. But, too often these islands are not large enough to provide long-term support for the animals who live within. Surrounding these islands exist areas not hospitable to wildlife, and wildlife that naturally ventures beyond the confines of their habitats are often at risk of conflict with humans and/or human development. The concept of wildlife corridors has become a way to direct animal movement away from, or safely through, dangers caused by humans. As human beings continue to dominate the landscape, habitat islands and wildlife corridors will become increasingly necessary for the survival of our many wild species.

Learn about the many types of interspecific interactions: competition, predation, herbivory, symbiosis, parasitism, mutualism, commensalism. Created by Sal Khan.

Students practice building food chains and webs, explore interrelationships in the EOL Food Webs Tool, then model the flow of energy in food webs.

In this field lab students will investigate the biodiversity around their school. Students will perform a biodiversity count using transect line. The students will develop multiple hypotheses relating to biodiversity and propose additional procedures for studying, collecting and testing these questions.

In this jigsaw activity, students of intermediate-level French will divide into five groups to become experts on each of the five biodiversity questions featured on the Curiosphere website. They will proceed to explain their assigned aspect of the issue to a small group of students.

Meiosis is the process by which gametes (eggs and sperm) are made. Gametes have only one set of chromosomes. Therefore, meiosis involves a reduction in the amount of genetic material. Each gamete has only half the chromosomes of the original germ cell. Explore meiosis with a computer model of dragons. Run meiosis, inspect the chromosomes, then choose gametes to fertilize. Predict the results of the dragon offspring and try to make a dragon without legs. Learn why all siblings do not look alike.

Students explore the relationships between genetics, biodiversity, and evolution through a simple activity involving hypothetical wild mouse populations. First, students toss coins to determine what traits a set of mouse parents possesses, such as fur color, body size, heat tolerance, and running speed. Next they use coin tossing to determine the traits a mouse pup born to these parents possesses. These physical features are then compared to features that would be most adaptive in several different environmental conditions. Finally, students consider what would happen to the mouse offspring if those environmental conditions were to change: which mice would be most likely to survive and produce the next generation?

In this biology field experience, students will explore trees of Minnesota. Working in cooperative groups, students will discover biodiversity of trees and determine populations of tree species through observation and use of dichotomous keys.