From: Interactive Evolution Modules Promote Conceptual Change
Natural selection | |
Concepts | Activities and thinking skills |
Populations evolve; individuals do not evolve | Accompany Darwin on a virtual field trip, contrasting Darwin’s reasoning about the interaction, chance, and heredity with widely held misconceptions |
Natural selection is not a random process | Â |
Genetic mutations that produce phenotypic variations occur randomly. They are not an intentional response of organisms | Play the “Fitness Fever” game, scoring points for analyzing fitness of genotypes and selecting changes that enhance fitness |
Natural selection acts on existing phenotypic variation; it does not cause variation | Play the role of a predator feeding on a population of peppered moths over three generations |
Phenotypes that allow organisms to survive and reproduce in the environment will increase over time relative to other phenotypes | Calculate changes in allele frequencies due to predation and appraise evidence for microevolution of the population |
Species and speciation | |
Concepts | Activities and thinking skills |
Species definitions vary, e.g. morphological vs. biological vs. phylogenetic | Classify frog population into species categories, applying the biological, morphological, and phylogenetic species definitions |
Species are composed of a number of different populations | Deconstruct evolutionary and geological events leading to the distribution of modern-day Fuschia species |
Evolution of new species can occur allopatrically or sympatrically | Interpret phylogenetic and biogeographical evidence to analyze hypotheses explaining observed patterns of speciation |
Lack of gene flow, or reproductive isolation, between populations leads to speciation | Evaluate several types of evidence and judge whether populations constitute separate species in two case studies; one involving mosquitoes and a second involving panthers |