Natural Selection Lesson & Activity for the Google Classroom

This Google Classroom resource is a great way for students to learn about adaptations, natural selection, and microevolution through peer interactions and technology integration.

In this lesson, students will:

-Learn that adaptations are genetic mutations/differences that are favorable to a species and their survival in their environment

-Watch a TedEd video about adaptations and natural selection

-Learn that natural selection occurs when specific traits in a species contribute to the survival of that species

-Learn that microevolution refers to the small observable changes within a species that benefit the survival of that species

-Learn that adaptations and natural selection are forms of microevolution

-Complete a TedEd lesson about the microevolution of Staphylococcus to become resistant to antibiotics

-Play a natural selection game to illustrate how certain traits contribute to an organism’s survival in an environment

NGSS Standards Covered:

LS4.B: Natural Selection

Sometimes the differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing.

LS4.C: Adaptation

Natural selection leads to adaptation, that is, to a population dominated by organisms that are anatomically, behaviorally, and physiologically well suited to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. That is, the differential survival and reproduction of organisms in a population that have an advantageous heritable trait leads to an increase in the proportion of individuals in future generations that have the trait and to a decrease in the proportion of individuals that do not.

Adaptation also means that the distribution of traits in a population can change when conditions change.

Check out these other awesome Google Classroom Interactive Slides:

Ain't Nobody Got Time to Graph

Deck the Halls with Data Tables

What's Cookin' Good Lookin?: A Google Classroom Lesson on Genetics

I Like to Move It, Move It: A Google Classroom Lesson on Motion

Intro to Cells

Photosynthesis

Newton's Third Law