To engage student interest in the lesson, teachers should raise the question of how there came to be two different populations of pocket mice (light/dark). Before starting the activity, it is helpful if the teacher familiarizes students with the rock pocket mouse and its habitat. Based on this evidence, students arrange the four illustrations in a sequence from oldest to most recent, and make an argument for how natural selection leads to a change in fur color in the populations of rock pocket mice over time. As students return to the four illustrations after watching the video, they analyze the illustrations by counting and graphing the color distribution of rock pocket mice at the two locations (light/dark). Watching the short film, students learn about the changes of rock pocket mouse populations, and that the environment contributes towards determining whether or not randomly arising mutations in fur color are advantageous, neutral, or deleterious. This resource is explicitly designed to build towards this performance expectation.Ĭomments about Including the Performance ExpectationĪt the beginning of the lesson, students place four illustrations showing different numbers of light and dark colored rock pocket mice at two locations (light/dark substrate) in sequence from oldest to most recent.
#Rock pocket mouse worksheet series
The series also has two animations which will help to reinforce the concept. The film is also available as an interactive video with embedded questions, which test students’ understanding as they watch the film. This ten minute film shows adaptive changes in rock pocket mouse populations, demonstrating the process of natural selection and can be accessed at. This is one of several classroom activities, focusing on related topics and varying in complexity, built around the short film. Based on this evidence, and what they learn about variation and natural selection in the accompanying short film, students use this evidence to explain the change in the rock pocket mouse populations on the lava flow (dark substrate) over time.
I do not know who the original creator was.This activity provides an introduction to natural selection and the role of genetic variation by asking students to analyze illustrations of rock pocket mouse populations (dark/light fur) on different color substrates in the Sonoran Desert (light/dark) over time. This work was originally posted in another group, though I did modify it and change formatting for remote lessons. Alternatively, you could remove the shaded boxes for print material. I designed this worksheet for remote learning, so answer fields are shaded to help me grade them and to indicate where students should answer questions or review data. This worksheet focuses more on speciation and reproductive isolation. Students have already studied stickleback fish and the rock pocket mouse. I spend a lot of time with students studying real populations and data to reinforce the concept that evolution is happening and not just something that happened in the past. Students will be somewhat familiar with finch studies if they have already watched the HHMI video on speciation and finches.
Students must answer a final synthesis question about how the population models types of speciation. If possible, students work together and discuss the case. Students read about the study and examine graphs and charts that describe the data that was gathered by the Grants. Later, the new group moved to a different area of the island and would only mate with closely related members. The strange subpopulation, which were playfully named “Big Birds” would sing songs that the other birds didn’t recognize. Students explore the case to learn about geographic and behavioral isolation which can lead to speciation. Consequently, the original group would not breed with these new group, because they had a larger size and a different song. An immigrant species bred with the local birds on the island which created a new lineage of birds, which were different from the original population.
Students learn about a case where speciation occurred between two populations of finches.
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