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How Animals Adapt to Their Environments– Examples and Evolution

In this activity, students analyze examples of adaptations, including camouflage, mimicry of an inedible object, and phenotypic plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity means that a single genotype can develop different phenotypes in different environments.

Phenotypic plasticity allows an individual organism to adapt to different environments during its lifetime. Natural selection for an adaptation allows a population of organisms to adapt to different environments over time.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files and as a Google doc designed for use in online instruction and distance learning. The Teacher Notes, available in the last attached file, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The last attached file is a Powerpoint of the figures so you can show your students the color camouflage.




AttachmentSize
evolution adaptations SH.docx1.37 MB
evolution adaptations SH.pdf254.59 KB
evolution adaptations TN.docx518.52 KB
evolution adaptations TN.pdf239.29 KB
evolution adaptations.pptx1.76 MB
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Comments

Serendip Visitor's picture

Love it

Submitted by Serendip Visitor (guest) on Wed, 10/26/2016 - 6:00pm.

What a great job on the student and teacher sheets. I've been struggling trying to figure out a fun and interesting way to get kids involved with natural selection and evolution.

Dan B's picture

Video Link Broken

Submitted by Dan B (guest) on Tue, 01/05/2016 - 4:19pm.

The Science Friday video link on cephalopod camouflage results in an error 404. Is there an alternative site to access the video?

iwaldron's picture

link for octopus camouflage video

Submitted by iwaldron on Sun, 01/10/2016 - 10:28am.

Thanks for alerting me to this problem. This video is available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS-USrwuUfA

Ingrid

Nandini Katti's picture

Biology

Submitted by Nandini Katti (guest) on Sun, 03/29/2015 - 11:35pm.

I use lesson plans given over here to bring some novelty in my teaching. This is a good website with lots of cool ideas.

Anne P. Story's picture

AP AND HONORS biology

Submitted by Anne P. Story (guest) on Sun, 05/11/2014 - 4:12pm.

I have just stumbled across this website and I am thrilled to have such an incredible resource.
Thank you!

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To preserve the value of these learning activities for other teachers, please do not post keys for any questions from any of these activities!

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Authors

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is Professor Emerita in the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Co-authors include Dr. Jennifer Doherty, who is an Assistant Professor in the Physiology Department at Michigan State University, and Dr. Lori Spindler, who is a Lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania. They have developed these activities in collaboration with colleagues at Penn and middle school and high school teachers in the Philadelphia area. We are grateful to Craig Douglas for his generous help with graphics.

 

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