University of Arkansas Fort Smith

School of Education
Lesson Plan Format

Unit Title: Traveling with Pi

Lesson Title: Investigating Natural Selection

Subject Area: Science

Duration of Lesson: 2 days (50 minute
periods)

Grade Level: 8th grade

Name: Caitlin James

SOE Course: EDUC 3403

Date(s): December 2, 2014

I. Standard and Objective

Standard
LS.3.8.15
Explain the process of natural selection
LS.3.8.17
Investigate careers, scientists, and historical breakthroughs related to natural selection and the
fossil record
Objective
Students will be able to:
demonstrate the basic process of natural selection
apply their understanding of natural selection to an organism in Life of Pi
investigate the work of Charles Darwin related to natural selection

II. Assessment
Pre-assessment (before planning lesson)
Students will complete a pre-assessment over genetics, Gregor Mendel Father of Genetics, and
basic ideas related to biological evolution: diversity of species, variations within species,
adaptations, and extinction of species.
Post-assessment
Students will be formatively assessed throughout the two day lesson.
Inquiry-based learning experiment with observation checklist
Writing assignment

III. Planning
Prior knowledge needed:
- Genetics
- Gregor Mendel Father of Genetics
- Compare theory of evolution to the characteristics of a scientific theory
- Basic ideas related to biological evolution: diversity of species, variations within species,

adaptations, extinction of species

- Vocabulary
organisms
populations
species
traits (inherited and acquired)
genetic variation
genes

New vocabulary:
- Natural selection
- Charles Darwin

Cooperative Grouping:
Students will be seated at table groups of three to four students. Groups are arranged
heterogeneously according to learning abilities, gender, and accommodations.
Group roles:
Instructor game keeper and time keeper
2 Predators
Recorder

IV. Engaging the Learner

-Anticipatory Set: (Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZETITM2IPg
-Authentic hands-on experiment
-Cooperative Groups

V. Methods, Activities and Resources

Methods
Inquiry-based learning
The inquiry-based learning experiment will help students establish a basic understanding of
natural selection. Students will investigate the predator-prey relationship as an example of how
natural selection occurs in a population.
Class Discussion
We will discuss the experiment on natural selection and relate it to current happenings. The
concepts of natural selection will illustrate the importance of Darwins theory in todays society.
We will also look at excerpts from Darwins book On the Origin of Species, as well as Life of Pi
to make comparisons.
Research Task
Students will be given instructions for researching an organism of choice out of the Life of Pi
book.
Independent writing assignment
Students will be given a writing prompt with specific guidelines.
Cooperative groups
Group roles:
Instructor game keeper and time keeper
2 Predators
Recorder

Classroom Management
Group work cups
I will be using the three color cup system so I can constantly be aware of how students at each
table are doing and if they need assistance. This eliminates hand raising and blurting, and has
proved to be a very effective strategy. The cup system involves stacking a red, yellow, and green
cup in the middle of table groups. The green cup means that students are doing great with no
questions. The yellow cup means they have a question, but can keep working until I am able to
come to their table. The yellow cup cannot be put on top until a student has asked all group
members, and still needs assistance. The red cup means students are finished with the activity.

Leadership roles
Leadership roles will be used as needed as students already know their role they are responsible
for.
Roles:
Door Greeter
Messenger
Book Distributor
Janitor
Substitute Teacher Assistant
Sub Leader
Crisis Leader/Line Leader
Time Keeper
Noise Control
Caboose
Table Top Organizer
Labsheet Leaders
Make up Work
Attendance
Popsicle sticks
I will use popsicle sticks with numbers written on them to randomly call on students during class
discussion. This will keep students engaged in the lesson and keep participation fair.
Activities
Day 1 Anticipated Schedule:
Anticipatory Set (3 minutes) Experiment instructions (5 minutes) Inquiry-based learning
experiment (12 minutes) Graph presentations (8 minutes) Class Discussion (20 minutes) Closure
(2 minutes)
Day 2 Anticipated Schedule:
Bell work/Focus Question (3 minutes) Review/Reflect on previous day (5 minutes) Task
Instructions (5 minutes) Research Task (15 minutes) Assignment Instructions (2 minutes)
Individual writing assignment (20 minutes)

Day 1 Activities
Anticipatory Set
Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZETITM2IPg
Experiment Instructions
I will have supplies already in place at the table groups in bags. I will tell students they are going
to perform an experiment at their table groups of 3-4. I will allow them to read over the
experiment and then briefly review it with them.
Inquiry-based Learning Experiment
*See experiment handout
Graph Presentations
Each group will report their findings to the class by quickly presenting their graphs.
Class Discussion
We have demonstrated the theory of natural selection. It was developed by Charles Darwin and
published in 1859. He stated that natural selection is a process by which individuals with
inherited characteristics well-suited to the environment leave more offspring on average than do
other individuals hence passing on those characteristics.
We will discuss the experiment on natural selection and relate it to current happenings. The
concepts of natural selection will illustrate the importance of Darwins theory in todays society.
We will also look at excerpts from Darwins book On the Origin of Species, as well as Life of Pi
to make comparisons.
Discussion Questions:
Which, if any, colors of paper dots survived better than others in the second and third
generation?
Answers will vary depending on the color of fabric the group had. There should be fewer dots of
those colors that stood out against the fabric.
What might be the reason that predators did not select these colors as much as they did the
other colors?
Some colors were better camouflaged than other colors blended into the habitat
What effect did capturing a particular colored dot have on the numbers of that color in the
following generation?
It no longer reproduces and cant pass on its genes

The Process of Natural Selection

Darwins process of natural selection has four components.
Variation. Organisms (within populations) exhibit individual variation in appearance and

behavior. These variations may involve body size, hair color, facial markings, voice
properties, or number of offspring. On the other hand, some traits show little to no
variation among individualsfor example, number of eyes in vertebrates.
Inheritance. Some traits are consistently passed on from parent to offspring. Such traits

are heritable, whereas other traits are strongly influenced by environmental conditions and
show weak heritability.
High rate of population growth. Most populations have more offspring each year than

local resources can support leading to a struggle for resources. Each generation
experiences substantial mortality.
Differential survival and reproduction. Individuals possessing traits well suited for the

struggle for local resources will contribute more offspring to the next generation.
From one generation to the next, the struggle for resources (what Darwin called the struggle
for existence) will favor individuals with some variations over others and thereby change the
frequency of traits within the population. This process is natural selection. The traits that confer
an advantage to those individuals who leave more offspring are called adaptations.
In order for natural selection to operate on a trait, the trait must possess heritable variation
and must confer an advantage in the competition for resources. If one of these requirements does
not occur, then the trait does not experience natural selection. (We now know that such traits
may change by other evolutionary mechanisms that have been discovered since Darwins time.)
Apply to Everyday Life:
Antibiotics
Who here has taken antibiotics when theyre sick? They fight off bacteria. Some strains
of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. When a population of bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic
those that are resistant are able to proliferate and pass on their genes. Next thing you know is you
have a whole population of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Next time you get a cold the antibiotic
doesnt work because they are resistant to that drug.
One way in which this happens is when doctors over-prescribe antibiotics. A virus is
making them sick but they are prescribed antibiotics, what bacteria they do have could be

resistant to antibiotics and given the opportunity to proliferate. Another factor is the mass
production and administration of antibiotics to cattle. The antibiotics filter from the feed into the
ground to the water supply where they are exposed to numerous types of bacteria. Those bacteria
that are resistant to the antibiotics can then reproduce and possibly infect humans and animals.
Endangered species
Such as the cheetah, has anybody seen the cheetahs at the zoo the cats that are really
fast? Cheetahs were hunted so extensively that their population dwindled to just a few dozen.
These few dozen interbred and now have a very small gene pool. They are lacking the diversity
necessary to overcome new diseases or other circumstances they are exposed to.
Excerpts from The Origin of Species
* I will be giving students handouts containing the biography and chapter four.
I will first have students read the biography of Charles Darwin in the beginning of The Origin of
Species book by Charles Darwin.
We will then skim through pages 81 to the bottom of 88 and I will have them highlight the most
important things.
Excerpts from Life of Pi
* I will be giving students handouts containing the chosen excerpts.

Mr. Kumar was the first avowed atheist I ever met. I discovered this not in the
classroom but at the zoo. He was a regular visitor who read the labels and
descriptive notices in their entirety and approved of every animal he saw. Each to
him was a triumph of logic and mechanics, and nature as a whole was an
exceptionally fine illustration of science. To his ears, when an animal felt the urge
to mate, it said "Gregor Mendel", recalling the father of genetics, and when it was
time to show its mettle, "Char`les Darwin", the father of natural selection, and
what we took to be bleating, grunting, hissing, snorting, roaring, growling,
howling, chirping and screeching were but the thick accents of foreigners. When
Mr. Kumar visited the zoo, it was to take the pulse of the universe, and his
stethoscopic mind always I confirmed to him that everything was in order, that
everything was order. He left the zoo feeling scientifically refreshed (25-26).
Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving
social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply
of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever
endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context? Animals in the wild

are, in practice, free neither in space nor in time, nor in their personal relations. In
theory-that is, as a simple physical possibility-an animal could pick up and go,
flaunting all the social conventions and boundaries proper to its species. But such
an event is less likely to happen than for a member of our own species, say a
shopkeeper with all the usual ties-to family, to friends, to society-to drop
everything and walk away from his life with only the spare change in his pockets
and the clothes on his frame. If a man, boldest and most intelligent of creatures,
won't wander from place to place, a stranger to all, beholden to none, why would
an animal, which is by temperament far more conservative? For that is what
animals are, conservative, one might even say reactionary. The smallest changes
can upset them (16).
Animals are territorial. That is the key to their minds. Only a familiar territory
will allow them to fulfill the two relentless imperatives of the wild: the avoidance
of enemies and the getting of food and water. A biologically sound zoo enclosurewhether cage, pit, moated island, corral, terrarium, aviary or aquarium-is just
another territory, peculiar only in its size and in its proximity to human
territory (17)
A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by
and safely. A sound zoo enclosure is the equivalent for an animal (with the
noteworthy absence of a fireplace or the like, present in every human habitation).
Finding within it all the places it needs-a lookout, a place for resting, for eating
and drinking, for bathing, for grooming, etc.-and finding that there is no need to
go hunting, food appearing six days a week, an animal will take possession of its
zoo space in the same way it would lay claim to a new space in the wild,
exploring it and marking it out in the normal ways of its species, with sprays of
urine perhaps. Once this moving-in ritual is done and the animal has settled, it
will not feel like a nervous tenant, and even less like a prisoner, but rather like a
landholder, and it will behave in the same way within its enclosure as it would in
its territory in the wild, including defending it tooth and nail should it be invaded.
Such an enclosure is subjectively neither better nor worse for an animal than its
condition in the wild; so long as it fulfills the animal's needs, a territory, natural or
constructed, simply is, without judgment, a given, like the spots on a leopard. One
might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for
living in a zoo, since the major difference between a zoo and the wild is the
absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their
respective abundance and scarcity in the second. Think about it yourself. Would
you rather be put up at the Ritz with free room service and unlimited access to a
doctor or be homeless without a soul to care for you? But animals are incapable of
such discernment. Within the limits of their nature, they make do with what they
have (18).

I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope
that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know
zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem.
Certain illusions about freedom plague them both (19)
Closure
I will let students know about the writing assignment for the next day so they can study/look
over their notes if they choose to do so.
Day 2 Activities
Bellwork/Focus Question
What is your favorite organism in the book Life of Pi?
Review/Reflect on previous day
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/selection/selection.html
Task Instructions
Students will begin research on their favorite organism in the book Life of Pi, which will be
beneficial to them when they complete the performance task at the end of the unit. I will take
students to the library/media center.
Required Information:
-Species
-Subspecies (Living and Extinct)
-Description of organism (size, color, etc.)
-Locations
-Habitat
-Social activity
-Diet
-Reproduction

Resource Options:
-Life of Pi
-Non-fiction books
-Encyclopedia
-Valid internet source

Research Task
* See research task handout

Assignment Instructions
Answer the following prompts in approximately two paragraphs.
-

What does the theory of natural selection mean to you? Provide a definition of the
concept in your own words and identify its four components. (approx. 4-5 sentences)
Comment on why it is important to understand this concept for the benefit of
understanding other ideas in science. (approx. 1-2 sentences)

Provide an example of natural selection relating to the organism you are researching from
Life of Pi. This example could be real or fictitious (made up) as long as it shows natural
selection. (approx. 3-5 sentences)

This assignment is worth a total of 12 points and credit will be distributed as shown in the below
rubric.

Definition
Four components
Benefit
Example
Total points earned:

Understands fully/
explained clearly

Understands
somewhat/explained
well

Somewhat
misunderstands/
explanation deficient

(3 points)

(2 points)

(1 point)

Individual Writing Assignment

* See handout
Resources
http://www.nku.edu/~bowlingb2/NaturalSelectionActivity/LP_1.pdf
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/selection/selection.htl
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origin-Species-Charles-Darwin/dp/0553214632
Books:
Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001.
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. New York: Bantam Classics; Reissue edition., 1999.
Materials:
For each group:
-

One piece of patterned fabric

60 dots of paper (hole punched from construction paper) in 3 different colors 20 of each
color Extra paper dots of each color

Colored pencils similar to the color of the paper dots

Investigating Natural Selection handouts

Graph paper

Stop watch

Non-fiction books
Encyclopedias
Internet access (Computers, i-Pads, or phones)
Research Task handout
Writing Assignment handout with rubric

VI. Potential Adaptations to the Lesson {PAL}

If students need more time on the writing assignment I will allow them 15 minutes to work on it
at the beginning of the next days lesson.
I will need to reserve the library/media center for students to begin their organism research. If
something occurs where we are not able to go or use the center, then I will try to have a variety
of the resources they need in the classroom. If I am unable to do this I will schedule the library/
media center on another day.
Accommodations
IEP- Students with learning disabilities will receive the necessary accommodations according to
their individual IEP
504- Students will receive the necessary accommodations according to their individual 504 plan
ELLs- Depending on severity and need, students will be provided material in English and in their
first language. I will also post labels on objects around the classroom in English. I will pair them
up with a buddy who will assist them with a variety of things, unless I am the only one who can
help.
VII. Collaboration
I will collaborate with the other 8th grade teachers (all content areas) to coordinate calendars,
planning, activities, and assessments, which will hopefully create a smooth-flowing, thematic,
grade-wide unit.
VIII. Reflection and efficacy (to be completed after teaching this lesson)

I n v e s t i g a t i n g N a t u ra l S e l e c t i o n
You are going to be performing an experiment to investigate the
predator-prey relationship of how natural selection occurs in a
population. All materials are included in the start bag. Make sure you
!

read ALL of the important information, group roles, and experiment

steps before starting.

Important Information:

The piece of fabric will serve as the habitat

Start with 20 each of 3 colors of dots (starting population -total
of 60)
The dots are the prey
You will need to note the number of prey for each color of all
four generations. (Notice the data table in this handout)
Colored pencils and graph paper are for graphing the results

Group roles:
Write each group members name next to their assigned role.
1. _______________
keep time)

Game keeper (control the colored dots and

2. _______________
Two Predators (hunting the prey)
3. _______________

4. _______________
of each color)

Recorder (taking note of the number of prey

Experiment Steps
1.

Two predators look away as the gamekeeper lays out the fabric
and scatters the 60 dots from the start bag. The game keeper will
be keeping time with the stopwatch. When the instructor says
start, the predators have 20 seconds to pick up as many dots as
they can one at a time.

2.

When the instructor says stop, the group members separate out
the different colored dots that are left and determine how many
there are of each color.

3.

Simulate reproduction by adding one paper dot for each remaining

dot of that color. (There are bags of extra dots for each color)
Record the number of dots of each color in the table provided on
the worksheet under second generation.

4.

Repeat the predation using the second generation of dots.

5.

Count the remaining dots and simulate reproduction. Record the

number of dots in the third generation.

6.

Repeat the predation using the third generation of dots.

7.

Explain to students that they do not have to simulate reproduction

as they did before, but rather they should just calculate the
number of individuals that would be in the fourth generation
beginning population.

8.

Now graph the results from the four generations using the colored
pencils. Use colors that are similar to the colored dot.

D ata T able
Colors:

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
Generation Generation Generation Generation

20

20

20

R esearch T ask
What is your favorite organism in the book Life of Pi?

You will begin research on your favorite organism in the book Life of Pi, which
will be used to complete the performance task at the end of the unit.

Required Information:
-Species
-Subspecies

(Living and Extinct)

-Description

of organism (size, color, etc.)

-Locations
-Habitat
-Social

activity

-Diet
-Reproduction

Resource Options:
-Life

of Pi

-Non-fiction

books

-Encyclopedia
-Valid

internet source

***I want a basic citation including: source, title, date, weblink or page numbers***

Wr i t i n g A s s i g n m e n t
Answer the prompts below on a blank sheet of notebook
paper. I recommend approximately two paragraphs; however,
I am grading based on content understanding and not length.
What does the theory of natural selection mean to you? Provide a definition
of the concept in your own words and identify its four components (approx.
4-5 sentences).
Comment on why it is important to understand this concept for the benefit
of understanding other ideas in science (approx. 1-2 sentences).
Provide an example of natural selection relating to the organism you are
researching from Life of Pi. This example could be real or fictitious (made
up) as long as it shows natural selection.(approx. 3-5 sentences).

Rubric

Understands fully/
explained clearly
(3 points)
Definition
Four components
Benefit
Example

Total points earned:

Somewhat
Understands
misunderstands/
somewhat/explained explanation deficient
well
(2 points)

(1 point)