Curated OER
"Making a Good Impression"
Students are shown how fossils are formed and to learn how extinct organisms lived based on their remains and surroundings. They are shown TAKS review problems on the overhead related to evolution and fossil evidence. Students discuss...
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Walking Whales
Eighth graders explore the theory of evolution of whales. In this walking whales lesson students study a reading packet, divide into groups and respond to given questions.
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Darwinism: The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection.
The Darwin PowerPoint covers many of the Scientists that worked on similar concepts to Darwin and that were involved with famous theories. students are informed about the basic thinking behind natural selection and examples...
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Studying Fossils
Students study the Evolution in the Light of Fossils. Activities in this instructional activity range from quantitative measurements of hominoid skulls to the comparison of hominoid bone structures. They hypothesize dinosaur size and...
LABScI
Taxonomy: Who is in My family?
Find similarities in seemingly unlike organisms. The second instructional activity in a series of 12 builds the concept of a taxonomy and explores the use of a dichotomous key. Learners begin in part one by attempting to group a set of...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Historical Climate Cycles
Ice core samples give scientists access to climates of old—those from more than 800,000 years ago. Through an analysis of various temperature graphs from ice cores, tree rings, and weather stations, scholars compare historical climates...
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Explorations Through Time
In this earth history worksheet, students visit a website and complete 15 fill in the blank and 8 short answer questions based on what they read. Topics include biodiversity, animal kingdoms, evolution, fossils, and extinction.
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The Crusty Fossils
Students identify some of the different species of crabs and tell how they adapt themselves to their environment. They discuss the evolution and stages of development of the crabs. They identify the Phylum Arthropoda and the Class...
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Plants of the Past
Fourth graders explore ecosystems by examining plants of the past. They discuss ways in which we interact with plants in our daily lives. Students discuss the role plants play in providing food for animals and the significance they had...
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Becoming Human
In this evolution activity, students access a specific website and then answer questions about human evolution based on what they discovered at the website. This activity has 19 short answer questions and 3 essay questions.
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Human Evolution
Students make and use observations of Laetoli footprints to provide clues to life in the past. They collect and analyze data to study the relationship between foot length and body height.
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Studying Fossils
Students hypothesize dinosaur size and speed by looking at dinosaur track way or by measuring a dinosaur models water displacement. In addition, techniques to help students become familiar with the ways paleontologists study fossils can...
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Where Should We Place Archaeopteryx?
High schoolers classify Archaeopteryx using pictures of actual fossils and scientist representations of how the animal might have looked. They compare Archaeopteryx's characteristics to those of the five extant vertebrate groups to...
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Fossils-Where Should We Place Archaeopteryx?
Students explore an interactive computer activity that provides the opportunity to look at features of various groups of animals and determine where an extinct organism might be classified.
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Life Has A History
In this biology worksheet, students identify and match various classes of species found today. Then they explain why biodiversity exists today on earth and define evolution. Students also describe who a paleontologist is and what they do.
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Species Diversity and Phylogeny
Pupils explore the classification system of organisms: taxonomy. They examine prepared slides of Protozoans and record information on a Taxonomy Recording Sheet. Two additional classifying activities are also included in this activity.
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Hominoid Skull Comparison
Students are provided with evidence used to support evolutionary theory. They are introduced to classification by using primates as an example. Students read article related to Hominoid Skull Comparison and write a summary about the...
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Half Life Lab
Seventh graders model radioactive decay using pennies, collect data from their model, apply scientific visualization techniques to their data and create animated models explaining the concept of radioactive half-life.
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Hominoid Cranium Comparison
Students describe, measure and compare cranial casts from contemporary apes (chimpanzees and gorillas, typically), modern humans and fossil "hominids" (erect and bipedal forms evolutionarily separated from apes).
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Birds
Young scholars study birds and examine the idea that they evolved from reptiles or dinosaurs. In this birds lesson plan students divide into groups and research one side of the debate, then at the end have the young scholars debate...
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Asteroids
Students examine a potential asteroid impact site. They describe evidence and theories for extinction events.
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Chromosome Fusion
Students see how patterns can reveal events of the past, thereby merging elements of both experimental and historical science.
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Why do we need Vitamin C in our diet? Or Why do we carry old inactive genes in our genome?
Students explore and explain how mutations in the DNA sequence of a gene may be silent or result in phenotypic change in an organism and in its offspring. They analyze how evolution and biodiversity are the result of genetic changes that...
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What came first?
Students sequence events in their own lives and assign each a numerical time, students use the same process to sequence actual events in the evolution of life on Earth.