This cluster includes the following access points.
Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Name |
Description |
| Classy Chordates Part 1: | Learn the unique characteristics of four classes of underwater animals within phyla chordata, including tunicates, lancelets, lampreys, rays, sharks, and chimeras, in this interactive tutorial.
This is part 1 in a two-part series. Click to open Part 2 to learn about more familiar classes of animals in phylum chordata. |
| Classy Chordates: Part 2: | Explore the unique characteristics of bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals from phylum chordata in this interactive tutorial.
This is part 2 in a two-part series. Click to open Part 1 to learn about less familiar classes of animals in phylum chordata. |
| Classifying Animals Part 2: Annelids, Nematodes, Arthropods, Sea Stars, and Chordates: | Continue your tour of Kingdom Animalia by exploring the similarities and unique characteristics of annelids, nematodes, arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates. In this interactive tutorial, you'll also review animals from the four phyla we met in Part 1.
This is Part 2 in a series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
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| Classifying Animals Part 1: Sponges, Cnidarians, Flatworms, and Mollusks: | Dive into the fascinating world of animals and explore the similarities and unique characteristics of sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, and mollusks in this interactive tutorial.
This is Part 1 in a series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
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| Structure and Function of Fungi: Asexual and Sexual Reproduction (2 of 3): | Learn about asexual and sexual reproduction of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 2 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships |
| Conditions for Natural Selection: | Explore three conditions required for natural selection and see how these conditions lead to allele frequency shifts in a population. |
| Structure and Function of Fungi: Basic Characteristics and Structures (1 of 3): | Learn about the basic characteristics and structures of fungi in Part 1 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships |
| Structure and Function of Fungi: Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships (3 of 3): | Learn about the nutrition and mutualistic relationships of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 3 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction |
| Beyond Natural Selection: Mechanisms of Evolution : | Explore mechanisms of evolutionary change other than natural selection such as mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift in this interactive tutorial. |
| Natural Selection: | Describe the conditions required for natural selection and tell how it can result in changes in species over time. In this interactive tutorial, follow Charles Darwin through a life of exploration, observation, and experimentation to see how he developed his ideas. |
| Evolution: Examining the Evidence: | Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text.
You should be able to explain how different types of scientific evidence support the theory of evolution, including direct observation, fossils, DNA, biogeography, and comparative anatomy and embryology. |
| Earliest Beginnings: | Learn how to identify and describe the leading scientific explanations of the origin of life on Earth. |
| Diagramming Diversity 1: | Learn how living organisms are classified according to their characteristics, which reflects their evolutionary history and relationships, as you complete this interactive tutorial. |
| Diagramming Diversity II: | Learn to explain how a phylogenetic tree, or cladogram, is used to classify living organisms based on inherited similarities, and how it relates to other methods of hierarchical classification. |
| Classification using DNA: | Learn how to explain differences in genetic and non-genetic classification methods. You should also know why genetic evidence is very powerful for understanding evolutionary relationships among organisms. |
| Classification of Living Organisms: | Explore the characteristics of domains and kingdoms used to classify living organisms with this interactive tutorial. You also will learn more about the reasons behind how and why this classification is done. |
| Climbing Around the Hominin Family Tree: | Learn to identify basic trends in the evolutionary history of humans, including walking upright, brain size, jaw size, and tool use in "Climbing Around the Hominin Family Tree" online tutorial. |
| Name |
Description |
| Meet the Family: Investigating Primate Relationships: | In this lesson students will see the different types of evidence scientists use to understand evolutionary relationships among organisms. They will first practice by using shared physical characteristics to predict relationships among members of the cat family and then use this approach to predict primate relationships. They will compare their predictions to evidence provided by analyzing amino acid sequences and build a phylogenetic tree based on these sequences. Finally, they will look at the tree in the context of time in order to see divergence times. |
| Origins of Life: | Students will develop a scientific explanation for the origin of life on Earth and present the information that they find to the class through song, rap, story-telling, play-acting, or another creative method approved by the instructor. |
| ComBATing Extinction: | In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how Caribbean bat species are uniquely suited for studying the consequences of extinction. By reading this article, students will get a better understanding of geographic isolation and speciation, which are major themes when discussing the theory of evolution. In addition, students will gain an understanding of the devastating effects human impact can have on populations of species. |
| This Dinosaur Can't Sing: | In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article presents new research that suggests dinosaurs were not able to vocalize or "sing" in a way similar to modern birds. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included. |
| Humans vs. the Superbug: | In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article addresses how the United States is addressing the discovery of E.coli that is resistant to colistin, an antibiotic used only as a last resort. The text describes steps to take now that this superbug has reached our country. Scientists from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine explain why it is so easy for bacteria to share their "knowledge" about antibiotic resistance and discuss how concerned the U.S. citizens should be, as well as what we can do to slow the spread of superbugs. |
| Ancient DNA Gives Clues to Dog Evolution: | In this lesson, students will analyze an that addresses the genetic analysis of a 4,800-year-old dog found in a tomb in Ireland and how this information gives rise to a new hypothesis that dogs may have been domesticated at least twice, once in East Asia and also in Europe. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. |
| The Evolutionary Processes of Population Change: | This is a lesson plan designed to explain three evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. The lesson plan consists of a brief review about mutations and DNA, a PowerPoint discussion about the three evolutionary processes, and a hands-on activity. The activity is designed to help the students understand how populations change over time due to different traits in individuals in a population, as well as how to identify the different evolutionary processes in a population. |
| Searching for the Recipe: Polypeptides & the Origins of Life: | In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that addresses a new method of producing polypeptides from only amino and hydroxy acids, with no biological catalysts necessary. Researchers at Georgia Tech have been able to produce polypeptides by subjecting amino and hydroxy acids through a wet and dry cycle. This allows for prebiotic molecules to be formed on land, without large amounts of water or extreme boiling temperatures. This method also allows for the breakdown and reassembly of organic materials to form random sequences that could lead to the variation needed for life. This lesson plan is intended to support reading in the content area; it includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. |
| Link to Evolution: | In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that presents the major discovery of a nearly-intact cranial fossil of an ancient mammal from the Southern Hemisphere. The article discusses the significance of the discovery of this previously unknown mammal, a mammal scientists have named Vintana sertichi. This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. |
| Bioluminescent Millipedes Spark Bright Ideas!: | In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text by scientist Paul Marek, who re-charted the millipede Motyxia Bistipida's evolutionary tree based on new information about its bioluminescence. This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included. |
| Of Mice and Mutations: Natural Selection in Action: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In this lesson, students will analyze a text that addresses the issue of evolution by natural selection and mutation, using Florida "beach mice" as a case study. The lesson plan includes text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Ideas for extending the lesson are also included. |
| Shelly Sells Dichotomous Keys by the Seashore: | Students will be create a dichotomous key to identify and group shells. |
| Domains and Kingdoms: | This is a two day (45 min class period) lesson plan designed for high school classes. This lesson plan includes a video hook, a card sort of domains and kingdoms, a web map template (and answer key), a simile homework assignment, and a summative assessment in the form of a brace map (template and answer key provided). The objectives of the lesson plan is that students are able to list characteristics of organisms found in the domains/kingdoms, classify an organism into a domain or kingdom, and predict which form evolved first. |
| Fossil Evidence of Evolution on Earth: | This lesson will be used to teach about fossil evidence found in layers on the Earth and how it shows how life has evolved. |
| Name That Embryo: | This lesson introduces the concept of comparative embryology. Students will work in groups to observe similarities and differences in embryos from different organisms, and will make inferences to an evolutionary relationship between them. |
| Asthma Island : | In this activity, students simulate the founder effect on Tristan Da Cunha island. The island is located in the Southern Atlantic Ocean between South America and the southern part of Africa. It is the most isolated island on earth. The island's population is is 268 people and there are now 80 families that live in the island. Students will explore genetic drift (bottleneck and founder effect) and the importance of genetic variation in a population. |
| What is the Evidence for Evolution? Finding Scientific Proof: | Richard Dawkins, an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and writer of the 21st century, has said, "You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution." his quote emphasizes the importance of the comprehension of the theory of evolution in the discipline of biology. Living beings may seem diverse, but under the eyes of evolution, every living being comes from a common ancestor. Therefore, all species in the planet Earth are related. Thanks to the discovery of DNA and the technological advances being made in molecular genetics, we know that all organisms share the same four nitrogen bases which codifies within the same 20 amino acids: the difference is just the sequence. The evolutionary theory explains relationships between organisms by common ancestry. With all this knowledge, it's imperative to understand the foundation and what supports this theory.
This lesson contains three learning activities to achieve the learning objective. The first activity is a bell work that consist of three questions to assess prior knowledge of the students in diversity and evolution. The second activity is a collaborative research for each category that supports evolution. The last activity is the completion of notes taken by each student to ensure understanding and comprehension for every piece of evidence. |
| Selection, Naturally: A 5E Approach to Evolution by Natural Selection: | No need to search multiple lesson plans! The 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) is a way to cover natural selection in a format that addresses misconceptions and allow learners to gather information through critical thinking over a series of activities. |
| Natural Selection on Beach Mice: | In this lesson, students simulate the process of natural selection and its effects on prey phenotype frequencies over multiple generations. Students are provided with four background patterns and many prey pieces in four corresponding patterns. In this way, each prey type is well-camouflaged for one corresponding background, but is less suited to the others in varying degrees. Following several rounds of natural selection simulation, students compare prey phenotype frequencies to those frequencies found using random selection. |
| Cutting the Deck: | The lesson provides basic resources and tools to reinforce the mechanisms of speciation with emphasis on geographic isolation by using a common deck of playing cards to model events that could lead to speciation. |
| Is Natural Selection Random?: | Students will use the real-world example of Hurricane Opal wiping out the beach mouse population from Shell Island in 1995. Students will identify the environmental pressures that led to the differentiation of the Choctawhatchee beach mouse from the mainland population (St. Andrew beach mouse) as natural selection. They will examine the beach mouse population on this island immediately following the hurricane as an example of genetic drift, and the re-population of the island as gene flow. Students will then track changes in the population from the initial re-population following the hurricane to the current population and relate this to natural selection. |
| What is that Vertebrate?: | In this group-centered activity, students will be actively engaged in learning the characteristics that define the classes of vertebrates. Activities include a card sort, developing criteria for vertebrate classes, student teaching, and classifying a mystery animal. |
| Simulating Natural Selection via Paperus discus: | This is a low cost, simple to setup lab that simulates factors involved in natural selection. Students become "predators" that, along with the background environment, put selective pressure on a population of prey (discs). Students will make predictions, manipulate materials, collect data, analyze that data, and write a conclusion. This lab is easily modified to accommodate lower grade levels or expanded for higher level courses. |
| Selection Dance Party: | In this lesson, students will learn how sexual selection leads to the evolution of species by exploring how courtship rituals lead to the selection of traits in a population. |
| The Times They Are A Changin': | Students will combine their knowledge of the effects of climate change on ecosystems with trends in hominid evolution to predict future changes in hominid evolution. |
| Walk This Way: | This lesson explores the topic of hominid evolution using pictures of fossils, short guided notes with a PowerPoint Presentation, an engaging video, website exploration, and a graphing exercise. While this topic can be difficult to teach, this lesson presents the topic in a straight-forward, non-controversial manner, focusing on conclusions scientists have made based on fossil evidence. |
| How to Make a Monkey Glow in the Dark: | This lesson focuses on mutations and genetic recombination and how they increases the diversity of a population. The concept is presented as a PowerPoint, computer activity, and literacy article. Glow in the dark monkeys, spider goats, and modern biotechnology are used as attention grabbers. |
| Evolution of a Bead Population: | Students practice modeling the processes of genetic drift, gene flow, the founder effect and natural selection using a population of colored pony beads. |
| Nemo's Distant Relatives: | This lesson introduces the concept of speciation through geographic isolation. It uses pictures, small groups, and a short reading article to reinforce the concepts with multiple learning styles. |
| Classification of Domains and Kingdoms: | This lesson is organized around the big idea Classification, Heredity, and Evolution for a high-school biology course. The design of the lesson is general, however, the 5E model can be easily incorporated.
The lesson teaches students how to distinguish characteristics of living organisms belonging to the domains of Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya and the kingdoms of Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia. |
| Island Biogeography: | Students will study the concept of speciation and predict an island habitat"s biodiversity based on the island's size and distance from the mainland. |
| MERMAID TAXONOMY: | This MEA is designed to educate students about the use of classification systems and the general characteristics of vertebrates. Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom. |
| Identifying Misconceptions on Natural Selection: | In this lesson, students will take a short inventory on Natural Selection where they will be asked to read short passages and answer questions based on the Theory of Natural Selection. By comparing answers the students gave, the teacher will be able to identify common misconceptions they have on the Theory of Evolution. |
| Who Are My Relatives?: | This lesson will help students develop a cladogram to demonstrate the evolutionary relationships of diverse organisms. |
| Introduction to Natural Selection: | To develop an understanding of natural selection, specifically, how it unfolds from generation to generation. |
| Bird Brains - Evolutionary Relationships: | Students will compare the sequence of amino acids in a gene shared between humans and six other organisms and infer evolutionary relationships among the species. |
| MIT BLOSSOMS - Classifying Animals by Appearance vs DNA Sequence: | In this Blended Learning lesson, students will learn how to make phylogenetic trees based on both physical characteristics and on DNA sequence. The lesson model includes a video of a scientist who co-facilitates the lesson with the teacher, a teacher's guide, the handouts students will need, and a transcript. The Blended Learning model combines online learning with classroom instruction, where world-class experts, such as scientists and mathematicians from around the world use video to help teachers deliver lessons, while ensuring the students and teacher actively engage in the lesson through activities and discussion. |
| Becoming Whales: | Students will experience the historical discovery of fossils that increasingly link whales to earlier land-dwelling mammals. This experience reveals how scientists can make predictions about past events, based on the theory and evidence that whales evolved. This lesson also provides confirmation, with multiple independent lines of evidence, that there is a series of intermediate forms, showing gradual accumulation of changes, linking certain terrestrial mammal groups with modern whales. |
| Killer Microbe: | A lesson about the important topic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria with student activities and A/V resources. |
| Hominid Cranium Comparison (The Skulls Lab): | Students describe, measure and compare cranial casts from contemporary apes (chimpanzees and gorillas, typically), modern humans and fossil "hominins" (erect and bipedal forms evolutionarily separated from apes). ("Hominid" is the new collective term for African apes and humans.) The purpose of the activity is for students to discover some of the similarities and differences that exist between these forms, and to see the pattern of the gradual accumulation of traits over time, leading to modern humans. |
| T Rex Blood?: | A PBS Nova Podcast/Video with accompanying activities that introduce and explore paleontology and the geologic timescale through analysis of fossil bones. |
| A Strange Fish Indeed-The Discovery of a Living Fossil: | Through a series of fictionalized diary entries, this case recounts the 1939 discovery by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (and identification by J.L.B. Smith) of a living coelacanth, a fish believed to be extinct for over 70 million years. Developed for use in a freshman biology course as an introduction to the nature and methods of scientific inquiry, the case could also be modified for use in a number of upper-level biology courses such as ichthyology, evolutionary biology, and conservation ecology. |
| Evolution by Natural Selection: | Principles of natural selection are demonstrated by a simulation involving different color pompoms on different color and texture habitats and student feeders equipped with different types of feeding implement. Students learn how different adaptations contribute to differences in survival and reproductive success, which results in changing frequencies of genotypes in the populations. |
| Introduction to Darwin and evolution: | This activity will introduce Darwin and his travels. A world map is used along with excerpts from his book to plot his voyage and discoveries. |
| Pollution Evolution - A Solution?: | In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article in this lesson describes how a species of fish has adapted to lethal levels of toxic pollutants due to their high level of genetic variation, which allows them to evolve quickly. Scientists hope to use studies of these fish to understand human reactions to environmental chemicals. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. |
| Name |
Description |
| Against the Tide: Fish Quickly Adapt to Lethal Levels of Pollution: | This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes the evolution of a type of fish who can survive in a human-altered, toxic environment. The text discusses possible reasons for this successful evolution and what the implications are for other species, including humans. |
| Analysis of Fossilized Antarctic Bird's 'Voice Box' Suggests Dinosaurs Couldn't Sing: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have presented new findings on the fossilized voice box called a syrinx -- and its apparent absence in non-avian dinosaur fossils of the same age. This may indicate that other non-avian dinosaurs were not able to make noises similar to the bird calls we hear today. |
| Caribbean Bat Species Need 8 Million Years to Recover from Recent Extinction Waves: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article discusses how Caribbean bat species are ideal for understanding the implications of extinction and its effects on species. The article suggests that the geographic isolation of these species helps scientists to understand the causes of extinction and how long species may need to recover from natural and human impact. |
| How New Zealand's Glaciers Shaped the Origin of the Kiwi Bird: | This resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article discusses research conducted by scientists that proves there are more species and subspecies of kiwi birds than originally thought in New Zealand. The article discusses how scientists believe glaciers isolated populations and how new genetic lineages were discovered by analyzing the kiwi genome. |
| What the New Superbug Means for the US: | This resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes how colistin-resistant bacteria have reached the United States, which is cause for great concern. There are currently some strains of bacteria that are resistant to all types of antibiotics. Scientists will have to develop new antibiotics if we are to continue our mostly successful fight against bacterial disease. |
| Finding the Origins of Life in a Drying Puddle: | This text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes how researchers at Georgia Tech have discovered that polypeptides, which are the main component of proteins, can be formed by mixing amino and hydroxyl acids, and then simply putting them through wet and dry cycles. This would be a more plausible way for early prebiotic molecules to form. Previously, the only way to produce polypeptides involved boiling temperatures, which are not conducive to life. |
| Scientists Discover Fossil of Bizarre Groundhog-Like Mammal on Madagascar: | This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This article describes a new research discovery of the fossil remains of a groundhog-like mammal found in Madagascar. The article details the methodology scientists employed to unearth the fossil skull and explains the insights it offers into early mammalian evolution in the Southern Hemisphere. |
| The Mythology of Natural Selection: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes how natural selection occurs when mutations occur in an individual's DNA sequence. Two different populations can have two different genetic mutations yet end up with a similar phenotype. |
| Shedding Light on Millipede Evolution: | This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The author tells of his success in locating and reclassifying a species of millipedes known as Motyxia bistipita. Until his rediscovery these millipedes were not known to show bioluminescence. Once he discovered this trait he was then also able to trace their evolutionary lineage and determine the reasons for the development of this ability in bipista's relatives. This article also discusses bioluminescence in other species and its important medical applications. |
| Long-held Theory on Human Gestation Refuted: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a fine synopsis of a previously reported (and highly technical) study that shows the thought process behind challenging an existing theory. The subject is human evolution and the biology of childbirth. It encompasses basic anthropology concepts such as walking upright, as well as the biology of energy needs in pregnancy. Long-held views (that narrow birth canals are required for bipedalism) are debunked by careful analysis of how women with varying hip widths actually walk—and the authors found no difference. |
| Genetic Solution to Cancer, Diabetes?: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes a rare form of dwarfism called Laron's Syndrome, which is associated with an unusually low incidence of cancer and diabetes. This combination of characteristics allows scientists to speculate on the relationship between all three conditions. It appears that a mutation that causes dwarfism protects against the common diseases of cancer and diabetes. |
| A Living Fossil: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In 1996, a team of scientists discovered a species of rodent in Laos that was new to science. In a recent study, DNA analysis places the rodent in a mammal family that was previously thought to have gone extinct over 10 million years ago. Therefore, the rodent is a "living fossil." |
| Male Faces May Have Evolved to Be Punch-Resistant: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes new research suggesting that human ancestors, particularly males, evolved stronger jaws that were resistant to punches. (Females, perhaps less prone to fighting, do not show this same adaptation). This contradicts earlier hypotheses, which suggested that larger jaws evolved to better consume food resources.
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| Tough Decisions on the Front Line of Nature Conservation: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article expresses its author's opinion about culling animals in zoos, which is reducing a population by selective slaughter. The argument supports the idea of culling as a way to control inbreeding and to control the breeding of animals that will not help the species stay adaptable and immune to diseases. |
| Polar Bear Evolution Was Fast and Furious: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. New evidence shows that polar bears split off from their closest ancestors, brown bears, less than 500,000 years ago. This is a very short time for a large mammal to evolve. In that time, polar bears have evolved many adaptations to their specialized lifestyle, including the ability to process the large amount of fat in their seal-based diet. This is shown by their unique DNA sequence of genes related to fat processing and heart development. |
| Seeing Double: New Study Explains Evolution of Duplicate Genes: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. A new study explains that about half of our genes are copies, made by error during DNA replication, that have escaped elimination by natural selection through the addition of methyl groups. Usually these copies would be susceptible to developing mutations, but it is newly understood that they are evolving new functions instead. |
| Newly Discovered Paddle Prints Show How Ancient Sea Reptiles Swam: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.
Scientists have found fossils in seabeds in China that are tracks left by nothosaurs, ancient sea reptiles. These tracks provide evidence that these reptiles moved by rowing their forelimbs in unison, answering a long-standing question about how they propelled themselves.
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| Extinct Relative Helps to Reclassify the World's Remaining Two Species of Monk Seal: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists used DNA and morphological analysis to classify the extinct Caribbean monk seal. In doing so, they grouped it with the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal into a new genus, Neomonachus. The also critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal remains in its own genus, Monachus. |
| Meteorites May Have Sparked Life on Earth: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have formulated and tested another theory to explain how life began on Earth: meteorites crashing into the surface of the ancient planet brought with them the elements of life's building blocks. The results of the scientists' simulations are promising. |
| Arctic Fox and Other Polar Predators May Have Originated in the Himalayas: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses the possibility that the modern Arctic fox and other "hypercarnivorous" polar predators may have their origins in the Tibetan Plateau. The study uses fossil evidence, comparative anatomy, and biogeography to trace the evolutionary origins of the Arctic fox to the Himalayas. |
| Evolution Made Ridiculous Flightless Birds Over and Over: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article focuses on the evolution of ratites—large, flightless birds like the ostrich—and how they evolved to become flightless birds. New research shows that ratites evolved from common flying ancestors and that the evolutionary process occurred over and over again. |
| The Oldest Fish in the World Lived 500 Million Years Ago: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the discovery of an ancient fish that provides scientists with a "missing link" in the fossil record, helping them understand when and how organisms transitioned from boneless, jawless organisms into the fish that dominate the oceans today. The text details the adaptations these ancient fish had and draws connections to adaptations found in later species. |
| Could Common Earthly Organisms Thrive on Mars?: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article asks the question: could life exist on Mars? The research depicted specifically applies to a simple, single-celled organism called a methanogen, which is in the kingdom Archaea. So far, studies have shown that these types of organisms are able to survive in manipulated environments similar to the harsh conditions on Mars. |
| International Research Team Close Human Evolution Gap with Discovery of 1.4 Million-Year-Old Fossil : | Scientists discover a fossil which dates back 1.42 million years and shows the development of a bone not found in human fossils prior to this date. |
| 400,000-Year-Old Human DNA Adds New Tangle to our Origin Story : | This informational text describes how modern DNA extraction methods have shed light on two extinct human cousin species. Scientists are finding new ways to study fossil mitochondrial DNA which have led to rethinking how groups of early humans should be divided evolutionarily. |
| Probing Question: What is a Molecular Clock?: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains what molecular clocks are and how they are used to calculate evolutionary divergence and other evolutionary events. |
| Skull Fossil Suggests Simpler Human Lineage: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses the discovery of "Skull 5" and the traits that have led scientists to the conclusion that early Homo was a more diverse genus than realized before. |
| New Housecat-Size Feline Species Discovered: | This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The article discusses how scientists have discovered a species of Oncilla (little tiger cats) in Northeastern Brazil, which are a genetically different species than those in the rest of South America. |
| Bacteria Learn New Trick: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article shows how, through experimentation, bacteria evolve over a short period of time. The E.coli bacteria show the ability to eat a new food, citrate, after 13,000 generations of gene mutation. |
| What We Learned about Human Origins in 2013: | This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The article summarizes the gains in the understanding of hominid evolution to include comparative archaeology and biology, DNA and tool analysis. |
| Remote Sheep Population Resists Genetic Drift: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes a mouflon population located on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. This population of sheep was transplanted to Haute Island over 50 years ago. Recent studies show that the population has maintained its genetic diversity. This finding challenges scientists' beliefs about the theories of genetic drift and shows the power of natural selection. |
| Meet the Oldest Member of the Human Family: | This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. This article from Scientific American describes a fossil skull of a new genus and species of hominid thought to be 7 million years old, which was found in central Africa. |
| New Fossils Reveal Older Human Ancestor: | This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text is about the finding of a hominid fossil that is 1.5 million years older than other hominid fossils found to date. |
Vetted resources students can use to learn the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Title |
Description |
| Classy Chordates Part 1: | Learn the unique characteristics of four classes of underwater animals within phyla chordata, including tunicates, lancelets, lampreys, rays, sharks, and chimeras, in this interactive tutorial.
This is part 1 in a two-part series. Click to open Part 2 to learn about more familiar classes of animals in phylum chordata. |
| Classy Chordates: Part 2: | Explore the unique characteristics of bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals from phylum chordata in this interactive tutorial.
This is part 2 in a two-part series. Click to open Part 1 to learn about less familiar classes of animals in phylum chordata. |
| Classifying Animals Part 2: Annelids, Nematodes, Arthropods, Sea Stars, and Chordates: | Continue your tour of Kingdom Animalia by exploring the similarities and unique characteristics of annelids, nematodes, arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates. In this interactive tutorial, you'll also review animals from the four phyla we met in Part 1.
This is Part 2 in a series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
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| Classifying Animals Part 1: Sponges, Cnidarians, Flatworms, and Mollusks: | Dive into the fascinating world of animals and explore the similarities and unique characteristics of sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, and mollusks in this interactive tutorial.
This is Part 1 in a series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.
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| Structure and Function of Fungi: Asexual and Sexual Reproduction (2 of 3): | Learn about asexual and sexual reproduction of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 2 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships |
| Conditions for Natural Selection: | Explore three conditions required for natural selection and see how these conditions lead to allele frequency shifts in a population. |
| Structure and Function of Fungi: Basic Characteristics and Structures (1 of 3): | Learn about the basic characteristics and structures of fungi in Part 1 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
Click HERE to open Part 3, Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships |
| Structure and Function of Fungi: Nutrition and Mutualistic Relationships (3 of 3): | Learn about the nutrition and mutualistic relationships of fungi in this interactive tutorial. This is Part 3 of 3 in this series on the Structure and Function of Fungi.
Click to open Part 1, Basic Characteristics and Structures
Click HERE to open Part 2, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction |
| Beyond Natural Selection: Mechanisms of Evolution : | Explore mechanisms of evolutionary change other than natural selection such as mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift in this interactive tutorial. |
| Natural Selection: | Describe the conditions required for natural selection and tell how it can result in changes in species over time. In this interactive tutorial, follow Charles Darwin through a life of exploration, observation, and experimentation to see how he developed his ideas. |
| Evolution: Examining the Evidence: | Learn how to identify explicit evidence and understand implicit meaning in a text.
You should be able to explain how different types of scientific evidence support the theory of evolution, including direct observation, fossils, DNA, biogeography, and comparative anatomy and embryology. |
| Earliest Beginnings: | Learn how to identify and describe the leading scientific explanations of the origin of life on Earth. |
| Diagramming Diversity 1: | Learn how living organisms are classified according to their characteristics, which reflects their evolutionary history and relationships, as you complete this interactive tutorial. |
| Diagramming Diversity II: | Learn to explain how a phylogenetic tree, or cladogram, is used to classify living organisms based on inherited similarities, and how it relates to other methods of hierarchical classification. |
| Classification using DNA: | Learn how to explain differences in genetic and non-genetic classification methods. You should also know why genetic evidence is very powerful for understanding evolutionary relationships among organisms. |
| Classification of Living Organisms: | Explore the characteristics of domains and kingdoms used to classify living organisms with this interactive tutorial. You also will learn more about the reasons behind how and why this classification is done. |
| Climbing Around the Hominin Family Tree: | Learn to identify basic trends in the evolutionary history of humans, including walking upright, brain size, jaw size, and tool use in "Climbing Around the Hominin Family Tree" online tutorial. |
Vetted resources caregivers can use to help students learn the concepts and skills in this topic.
