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A) Chopsticks
B) Clothes pins
C) Large hair clips
D) Small hair clips
E) Tweezers
F) Binder clips
G) Chip clips
H) Tongs
II) Activity
A) In this experiment, the students were required to pick up as many sunflower seeds as they
could using their tool to do so. They could only pick one seed up at a time. Movement to
another location was allowed. Each round lasted for one minute. At the end of this
minute, students counted how many seeds they got. The three lowest students scores, the
losers, would get their tool taken away and it would represent a death in a specie (e.g.,
if there were five chopsticks in the beginning of a round and one lost at the end of the
minute, there would only be four chopsticks competing in the next round). The three
highest students scores, the winners, would pass along another one of their tools onto
the loser, representing heredity to offspring (e.g., five chopsticks would be raised to six
chopsticks competing). This was done for five rounds after the initial round. On round
number two, a mutation, the tongs, was added; mainly because a student joined the
classroom.
Results
Activity
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Initial
Round 01
Round 02
Round 03
Round 04
Chopsticks
Clothes Pins
Tweezers
Binder Clips
Chips Clips
Tongs
Round 05
Chopsticks decreased, going from five to two. Clothes pins decreased, going from five to two.
Large hair clips increased, going from five to seven. Small hair clips decreased, going from five
to four. Tweezers increased, going from five to 12. Binder clips decreased, going from five to
two. Chip clips increased, going from four to five. Tongs, once added, stayed stable; did not
increase or decrease.
Conclusion
I) My initial hypothesis was correct.
II) My initial hypothesis was correct seeing that the tweezers increased to 12 and that the
chopsticks decreased to two.
III) Another student came in during round two, which could have altered the results had they not
come in. An error could have been made in a students counting or integrity in their counting.
IV) My hypothesis could be wrong in other classes experiments since their data would be
different and the testing group is different.
Discussion
The theory of evolution is by natural selection is: favorable variations increase in frequency in a
population over time. The four underlying assumptions are:
A) Natural biological variation
a. (un)favorable and neutral
i. Depended upon the food availability, quickness of picking up seeds, and
tension in the hand, and which beak type was given to who determined if
you would be (un)successful.
B) Inheritance
a. The three weakest birds died, no longer being able to pass down their genes. The
three strongest birds were able to pass their genes down to their offspring.
C) Competition
a. Those in the back, in the beginning, had to travel to the front of the class to have
the ability to get more seeds. Over time, this caused the back row to have more
seeds than the front row. The quicker the hand, the more seeds youd be able to
get over those you were competing against before they took the seeds away from
you.
D) Individuals with favorable variation are more likely to survive and have more offspring
a. This was all dependent on the person wielding the tool
i. Some could use chopsticks better than others, or others could use tweezers
better than others.
1. This class seemed to have an easier time using tweezers, and when
this got inherited down, more people had the opportunity to have
more seeds and thus having a greater chance to pass down their
genes to another.
References
Jonas Berglund, Lamichhaney, Sangeet, Markus S. Almen, etc. "Evolution of Darwin's
Finches and Their Beaks Revealed by Genome Sequencing." Nature. Macmillan Publishers, 11
Feb. 2015. Web. <http://goo.gl/MMD0Ig>.
Parini, Mauricio R. "Theoretical Notes Pattern and Process in the Evolution of Learning."
American Psychological Association, Inc., 2002. Web. <http://goo.gl/QGeuxK>.