S9.4.5

Knows that natural selection leads to organisms that are well suited for survival in particular environments, so that when an environment changes, some inherited characteristics become more or less advantageous or neutral, and chance alone can result in characteristics having no survival or reproductive value.

Scavenger Hunt: Simulating Natural Selection

To help students learn, in a more concrete way, how natural selection operates, I came up with an activity that simulates evolution by natural selection. In this simulation, students take on the roles of crab-like predators that have variations in the shape of their "claws." These feeding appendages catch prey (pinto beans), and come in four variants: spoons, forks, knives, and chopsticks. Groups of students go hunting/scavenging for beans on grass lawns with their feeding appendages.

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