NATURAL SELECTION CONCEPT LAB

Objective: To gain a greater understanding of natural selection, how it works and how diversity affects the survival of species.

Setting the Scene: Imagine you and your classmates are predators searching for food. Your only source of food is the square-shaped items. Although they show a variety of colors, each square-shaped item is from the same species. You will eat any square-shaped item you see.

Procedure:

1. Cover your table with newspaper.

2. Open the baggie containing your square-shaped items and scatter them evenly over the top of the newspaper.

3. Each member of your group will take turns being a predator. When it is your turn, start by looking away from the square-shaped items. Count to 10 then quickly turn, look and grab the first square-shaped item you see. Only grab one square-shaped item at a time. After each member of your group has been a predator, it will be your turn again.

4. Continue taking turns as predator until you are told by your teacher to stop.

5. Count the number of each type of square-shaped item you ate and record those numbers in the data table below.

“PREDATOR’S” NAME

NEWSPAPER COLORED ITEMS

COLORFUL ITEMS

Questions:

1. What is the definition of natural selection?

2. Which of the square-shaped items is the “fittest”? Explain.

3. What determines how “fit” an organism is?

4. Did you select square-shaped items to eat based on their genetics or appearance (genotype or phenotype)?

5. Over time, what will happen to the allele frequency in this population of square-shaped items?

6. How would your answer to question number 5 change if all the square-shaped items were colorful? Newspaper colored?

7. How did having a variety of colors in the square-shaped item population contribute to its overall survival?