Details
Languages
English
Grade
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
Resource Type
Activities, Interactives
Product
Digital
Pages
69 Pages
Subject
Science, Biology
Standard
Next Generation Science Standards
Description
This remote learning ready, google slides lesson teaches students how to read evolutionary trees, and how to make the most parsimonious evolutionary tree possible using a data set. Student tasks are listed below.
1. Students learn how evolutionary trees are just like family trees, and answer some questions about a four generation family tree.
2. Students learn how all living things are related, and learn some additional rules and conventions about evolutionary trees.
3. Students watch a short video about using gene trees to determine when polar bears and brown bears diverged.
4. Students learn that evolutionary trees need to be parsimonious, and drag and drop labels onto two sets of trees to determine which is the most parsimonious, and therefore correct.
5. Students make a tree by filling out a chart of features from real organisms and placing these organisms onto a tree in the most parsimonious way. (I do this task as a class.)
6. Students make a tree for a set of 5 fictional organisms ("squidgens") by comparing features and deciding which tree is the most parsimonious (I have students complete this one on their own.)
7. Students learn that molecular evidence has sometimes led scientists to surprising conclusions about the real relationships among living organisms. Students choose one set of organisms (out of TEN sets) to analyze. They guess which organisms are most closely related based on appearance alone, and then learn the real relationships by reading a gel electrophoresis result and making a parsimonious tree from the appearance of the DNA bands. If I have time, I like to have my students do this task in groups, and then have the groups share their discoveries with the whole class. The organism sets are:
1. Camels, whales, hippos, pigs
2. Rhinoceroses, rock hyraxes, wombats, elephants
3. Douglas fir tree, daisy, oak tree, moss
4. Palm tree, cycad, orchid, grass
5. Tortoise, common grackle (a bird), bearded dragon, alligator
6. Chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, human
7. Pill bug/roly poly, spider, Japanese beetle, lobster
8. Fly amanita (a mushroom), coral cactus (a plant), amoeba, cheetah
9. Barnacle, clam, octopus, sponge
10. Paramecium, E. coli bacteria, myxozoa, giraffe
1. Students learn how evolutionary trees are just like family trees, and answer some questions about a four generation family tree.
2. Students learn how all living things are related, and learn some additional rules and conventions about evolutionary trees.
3. Students watch a short video about using gene trees to determine when polar bears and brown bears diverged.
4. Students learn that evolutionary trees need to be parsimonious, and drag and drop labels onto two sets of trees to determine which is the most parsimonious, and therefore correct.
5. Students make a tree by filling out a chart of features from real organisms and placing these organisms onto a tree in the most parsimonious way. (I do this task as a class.)
6. Students make a tree for a set of 5 fictional organisms ("squidgens") by comparing features and deciding which tree is the most parsimonious (I have students complete this one on their own.)
7. Students learn that molecular evidence has sometimes led scientists to surprising conclusions about the real relationships among living organisms. Students choose one set of organisms (out of TEN sets) to analyze. They guess which organisms are most closely related based on appearance alone, and then learn the real relationships by reading a gel electrophoresis result and making a parsimonious tree from the appearance of the DNA bands. If I have time, I like to have my students do this task in groups, and then have the groups share their discoveries with the whole class. The organism sets are:
1. Camels, whales, hippos, pigs
2. Rhinoceroses, rock hyraxes, wombats, elephants
3. Douglas fir tree, daisy, oak tree, moss
4. Palm tree, cycad, orchid, grass
5. Tortoise, common grackle (a bird), bearded dragon, alligator
6. Chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, human
7. Pill bug/roly poly, spider, Japanese beetle, lobster
8. Fly amanita (a mushroom), coral cactus (a plant), amoeba, cheetah
9. Barnacle, clam, octopus, sponge
10. Paramecium, E. coli bacteria, myxozoa, giraffe
This remote learning ready, google slides lesson teaches students how to read evolutionary trees, and how to make the most parsimonious evolutionary tree possible using a data set. Student tasks are listed below. 1. Students learn how evolutionary trees are... more
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