Biodiversity and Evolution

Week One
Lesson Objectives:

• Understand the diversity and similarity of life on Earth

• Explore how organisms adapt to their environment
• Appreciate the hidden diversity of microbial life in our environment

Materials/Supplies

• White and black construction paper

• Many white and black hole punched circles
• 8-10 Agar dishes
• Culture swabs

Introduction (5 min.)
Tell the students you’ll be talking about living things. Ask for some examples of living
things and see if the class can come up with a wide diversity of organisms. If the list is
not very diverse, you can make some suggestions. Tell the students that scientists
classify organisms into five different kingdoms: Plants, Animals, Monera (which
includes bacteria), Fungi, and Protista.

Lesson (20 min.)

Ask the students what living things need to survive. Let them brainstorm for a few
minutes before you suggest answers. Possible suggestions include water, food, and
shelter. Point out that despite the great diversity in living things, they all have some
things in common. Biologists define a living organism as “an organized genetic unit
capable of metabolism, reproduction, and evolution.” Explain what these terms mean:
• Metabolism: Process of taking energy from the environment and turning it into
energy that the organism can use to carry out reproduction.
o Ask the students what the difference is between the energy source used
by plants and that used by animals.
o Tell them you will talk more about metabolism next week.
 • Reproduction: The process that allows an organism to pass on its genetic code to
the next generation.
o Make sure the students understand the concept of genetic code

Tell them today’s lesson will focus on evolution. Ask if anyone knows what
evolution is. Explain that evolution is the process by which organisms change their
function to better survive in the environment. Scientists call these changes adaptations.
Ask if anyone can give an example of an adaptation. If they cannot think of anything,
one example is our opposable thumb (explain what this means if there are questions).
Primates (including humans) have evolved opposable thumbs so they are better able to
manipulate things in their environment. Ask them to try to pick up a pencil without
using their thumb to demonstrate how much easier things are with an opposable
thumb.
Explain that a classic example of evolution is the Peppered Moth. Before the
industrial revolution in England, these moths had peppered white bodies because they
live on birch trees. Ask what the advantage of having a white body might be for the
moths. The white body is an adaptation that allows them to blend into their
environment so predators have a hard time seeing them. After the industrial revolution,
the trees started to turn black from all the coal smoke. Ask the students if having a
white body is advantageous if the trees are no longer white. Because they can no
longer blend in to their environment, the moths are easier prey for predators. This causes
the white ones to be eaten much quicker. Explain that some moths have a mutation
that causes them to have a black body. When the trees were still white, this was bad
because they could be easily spotted by predators. Hence, the black moths were more
likely to be eaten and less likely to reproduce and pass that black gene on to their
offspring. However, when the trees started to turn black, it became advantageous to
have a black body, and hence the black moths were more likely to survive and pass
that trait to their offspring.
Evolution Activity: The Peppered Moth (20 min.)
Divide the class into groups of 3-4 students. Give each group a sheet of black
and a sheet of white construction paper, and a cup of hole punches. Explain that you
are going to model the peppered moth example. The white and black paper represents the
trees, and the dots represent the moths.
Tell them to place 10 circles of each color on the white piece of paper. One
member of the group should look away while the other members mix up the dots, and
then when all the groups are ready, start a timer (or look at the clock) and give the one
student who was looking away 10 seconds to pick up as many dots as they can.
NOTE: MAKE SURE THE STUDENTS ONLY PICK UP ONE DOT AT A
TIME!Have them count how many dots of each color they picked up, and make a tally
on the board.
Now have them switch roles and repeat the same thing only using the black
paper as a background. Make a second tally, and discuss the differences. With the
white paper, it should’ve been easier to see the black dots just like it is easier for the
predators to see the black moths on white trees. When the trees turned black, it was
easier to see the white moths, just like it was easier to see the white dots.
Tell the students that scientists observed over several years that the black moths,
which used to be very scarce, started to become the most common color of peppered
moth This is because the moths evolved and adapted to their changing surroundings.
Because it is easier to survive if the moths blend in to their surroundings, the ones that
blend in are more likely to reproduce and hence there will be more of those than of the
color that don’t blend in.
Biodiversity Experiment (10 min.)
Explain to the students that there is a wide diversity of life that we can’t see
with our naked eye. Ask if they know what sorts of living things we can’t see. They
will probably mention germs, which you should explain to them are really microscopic
bacteria. Hand out the agar plates, one to each group, and a swab. Have them create
a hypothesis of where the most bacteria will be, and show them how to take a swab of
that area and smear it on their agar dish. Have the students perform this step, and write
their names on the lid.

NOTE FOR THE TUTORS: When you store the agar plates, make sure you store them
with the agar side on top. Otherwise, the water condensation will drip down onto the
culture and kill the bacteria.

Conclusion (5 min.)
Explain that you will bring the agar dishes back next week and see what has
grown on them. You should be able to identify different colonies of bacteria, explaining
that there are many different types of microscopic life forms just as there are many
different types of animals we are familiar with. See if the students have any questions,
and then tell them next time they will be exploring metabolism and how organisms
get the energy to survive.
Normal Peppered Moth

Black-Bodied Peppered Moth

(Images courtesy of Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth>)