Summary
Students will apply the idea of generational change to the living world and to the inventive/technological world. Students need to have prior knowledge of the concept of speciation and factors that influence speciation.
Essential Question(s)
What are the evolutionary relationships between organisms and how do we illustrate those relationships?
Snapshot
Engage
Students will document observations they make from pictures of different species.
Explore
Students will arrange the Cladogram Cards to determine evolution path and organism relationships and to create both a data table and a cladogram.
Explain
Students will discuss and learn about the parameters of a cladogram.
Extend
Students will use a blog post about the evolution of cell phones as inspiration to do research and harvest data to construct a cladogram of the cell phone, computer, music player, etc.
Evaluate
Students will give feedback via a Gallery Walk of all the cladograms
Materials
History and Evolution of Cell Phones blog post (for Extend)
Cladogram Cards (for Explain)
Arrow Cards (for Explain)
Poster paper and poster-making supplies (for Extend)
Post-it Notes (Evaluate)
Copies of Rubric (Evaluate)
Engage
Display the second slide of the PowerPoint with the pictures of the zebras. Give students 2-3 minutes to brainstorm on their own the similarities and differences of the different pictures.
After the individual brainstorm, have a few students who are willing to share give some of their observations. Then, show the third slide of the different species names and the fourth slide of the phylogenic tree (of not only zebras but horses and donkeys, as well). There are questions on the slide that are intended to prompt student thinking.
Explore
Gather students into small groups using your preferred grouping method, then pass out set of the Cladogram Cards to these small groups of students. Using the strategy Sociogram, have students create a flowchart or trait relationship chart. Switch to slide 5 on the PowerPoint and leave this up as students work on their Sociograms.
First, students will draw (or place) arrows between cards that share traits.
Then, students will use the information on the cards to fill in a data table to determine the sequence of trait acquisition.
Finally, students will construct a cladogram based on the data that illustrates the progression of speciation.
As students work, pull out the core ideas of change over time, homologous structures, increasing complexity, mutation influence, and any pertinent academic language from the small groups as they stumble across them and post them on the board for the whole class to see.
Explain
Keep following your lesson by clicking through the included PowerPoint. The solution for both Set A and Set B of the cladogram cards is included (slides 6 and 7, respectively). Post the essential question: "What are the evolutionary relationships between organisms and how do we illustrate those relationships?" Engage in a Think, Pair, Share activity, where students think about their answers individually, share with a partner, then tell the whole class what was discussed. The prompt for this activity is included on slide 8 of the PowerPoint.
Extend
Have students read the blog post "The History and Evolution of Cell Phones" individually (instructions that can be posted are on slide 9), and then discuss informally together what they've read and how it relates to cladograms. Have small groups (2-3 students) each pick a subject to research. It could be anything, since everything experiences change if it sticks around long enough. The groups will do research on the subject, deciding on a beginning point and a progress of change, the parts that changed, and what it has become. Groups will then make a cladogram for their topic on a poster board or butcher paper, incorporating images, time references, and changes to shape each "generation."
Evaluate
Students will hang their finished cladograms around the classroom. Then, groups will do a Gallery Walk of the cladogram posters (instructions for which are on slide 10 of the PowerPoint), leaving Post-it notes of data gaps that need to be filled, needed details for clarification, or praise for parts that were well done. Groups then go back to their original posters, process the feedback, and make changes, as needed, to their posters.
Resources
K20 Center. (n.d.). CUS and discuss. Strategies. Retrieved from https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/d9908066f654727934df7bf4f5073969
K20 Center. (n.d.). Gallery walk / carousel. Strategies. Retrieved from https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/d9908066f654727934df7bf4f505a54d
K20 Center. (n.d.). Sociograms. Retrieved from https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/d9908066f654727934df7bf4f5061dbd
K20 Center. (n.d.). Think-pair-share. Strategies. Retrieved from https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/d9908066f654727934df7bf4f5064b49
Ray, A. (2014). The history and evolution of cell phones. The Art Institutes. Retrieved from https://www.artinstitutes.edu/about/blog/the-history-and-evolution-of-cell-phones