Summary of Natural Selection

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Description

The Natural Selection virtual lab allows students the opportunity to investigate into how natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population, and the suppression of others. Therefore, through this virtual lab, students will discover that environmental factors (e.g. foliage and temperature) influence whether each variation of Slinquette will never appear, go extinct, be endangered, survive, expand, or thrive in a specific environment.

Performance Expectations

HS-LS2-2   Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

HS-LS2-6   Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.

HS-LS3-3   Apply concepts of statistics and probability to explain the variation and distribution of expressed traits in a population.

HS-LS4-2   Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.

HS-LS4-3   Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.

HS-LS4-4   Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

HS-LS4-5   Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.

MS-LS4-6   Use mathematical representations to support explanations of how natural selection may lead to increases and decreases of specific traits in populations over time.