Evolution is very connected to today's society, and is an important topic for students to have an understanding in. It is a topic that is very relevant and that comes up in many different mediums of communication. From different facets of media, to face to face conversations Evolution is everywhere and is also one of the subjects in science that everyone likes to have a say on. Following are some examples of societal implications of Evolution that can be addressed with the class.
1) New fossils and organisms are being found which leads way to more evidence to prove speciation as well as divergent and parallel evolution. Click the link below to view the top 20 discoveries of 2013. This can be shown to students to show them how relevant and relevant the subject matter is.
This image shows an Arctic Camel that was assumed to have walked the area known as Canada today, but 3.5 million years ago.
Similar to this, this website is an amazing way for students to see how current evolution is, and how new species are found every day.
A task that can be given to students is to try and find another species that exists today that one of these species may have evolved from, and if so what adaptive factors came into play.
Click on the image for access to the link to the website.
Similar to this, this website is an amazing way for students to see how current evolution is, and how new species are found every day.
A task that can be given to students is to try and find another species that exists today that one of these species may have evolved from, and if so what adaptive factors came into play.
Click on the image for access to the link to the website.
2) Another possible activity that students can partake in to see the social implication of evolution would be debate between evolution and creationism. This debate would have to be run very carefully in order to respect all students' faiths and values. If a debate is out of the question, perhaps watching the "Great Debate" is a better option. The debate between Bill Nye the Science guy and Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation museum. CLICK HERE to read a summary of the debate. CLICK HERE to watch the full debate.
If the evolution/Creation debate is something that your class may not take very well or seriously, you can organize a different debate. Another possible debate idea is to debate how there is so much diversity in humans. Students can debate whether or not the diversity in skin colour is an evolutionary adaptation, or rather a factor of something else. Following are some sources that students can use to look into tboth sides of this debate and come up with thier arguments and counter arguments. -Theory of Evolution at Play -Skin colour not as adaptation -Skin colour as an adaptation -Transcript of TED talk and TED TALK itself -Human skin colour variation |
The Great Debate |
There are also many games that can be used to introduce the concept of evolution to a class. Following are two games that will help students Games
1. Survival of the fittest game for most game stations. Check out the trailer below.
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The game was released in 2002, and allows students to become a species that is in its early stages of evolutionary development. The player has to learn to adapt over generations to make it through each level. The game also allows the students to learn other concepts like food webs and food chains. CLICK HERE to read a game description breakdown. |
2. Sponge lab has an amazing natural selection game as well, that students can play to see how the different alleles and environmental factors change the populations of rabbits and foxes. CLICK HERE to launch the activity, but be advised that you must have a sponge lab account.