Natural Selection &

Adaptation WEBERCISE

Find the Science Channel Natural Selection website at http://www.sciencechannel.com/games-andinteractives/charles-darwin-game/. Click on Learn about Natural Selection.
1. What do you think Natural Selection is and why?

2. Click on Natural Selection. Go through the three steps in section and define the following terms by
scrolling over them or clicking on Glossary:
a. Species b. Variation c. Traits d. Offspringe. Survival of the fittest f.

Evolution- ____________________________________________________________________

g.

Reproduction- ________________________________________________________________

3. Identify three ways variation can impacts an organisms ability to survive and reproduce.
a.
b.
c.
4. Click on Survival Games.

Define Viable:
What are three ways you can change the population becomes viable, and explain why you chose to create
these trait changes? What traits did you test that caused the populations to go extinct?
a.
b.
c.
5. Click on Quiz.
Take the quiz, and write down your answer and reasoning for each question. At the end write your score.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Score: __________
6. Now Visit http://interactivesites.weebly.com/science.html and click on Animal Adaptations.
a. How can an organism living environment affect their physical traits?
Choose the interactive lesson Living things in their environment and answer the following questions.
a. Why doesnt a polar bear slip on ice when it runs? ______________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
b. How can different feet traits make living in certain environment better for some organism and not
others, such as polar bears in the artic and camels in the desert. ____________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
7. Go back to the interactive page, and Click on How Animals Meet their Needs.
a. How does the Jack Rabbit meet its needs ?
b. How does the Moray eel meet its needs?
c. How does the Jack Rabbit meet its needs? ______________________________________________
d. How does the anteater meet its needs? _________________________________________________
e. How does the Toucan meet its needs? ___________________________________________________
f. How does the Stick insect meet its needs? ________________________________________________

8. Now visit http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/pages/index.php?page_id=j. Click on Who was Charles

Darwin? Scroll to Confessing a Murder.
a. What theory did Darwin create?
b. Why did Darwin believe in his theory?
c. Give three reasons how this theory could be plausible:
1.
2.
3.
9. Go to the homepage and click on Why does it matter.
a. Read the passage and consider why the theory of Evolution/ Natural Selection matter to organisms?
b. Why does the theory of Evolution/ Natural Selection matter to you?

10. On a separate sheet of paper, think about Natural Selection and explain how is it important to
organisms that are trying to survive. How can organisms adapt to an environment, and what kind
of traits help them meet their needs to survive. In a separate paragraph consider how brave
Darwin was to come up with this theory with very little proof. Explain how he changed science
forever, and why does it matter to organism who are trying to survive. Finally, what did you learn
from this lesson and how have your views on organism survival, including humans, changed or
stayed the same.