Thursday, April 1, 2010

Last Project of the Year

I realized I forgot to post a place for you to discuss our very last project....The Evolution Adaptation Project.

You will make a video, powerpoint, or poster describing your chosen organism and its habitat (pick from the list)
You will explain the animal's way of eating, mating, hunting, and other habits, as well as describing natural diversity that exists in the species (a range of sizes, colors, litter size, mating time, vocalizations, etc.)
You will then pick the natural disaster (from the list) that striked the ecosystem.  Tell us how it changes the ecosystem, and how your species adapts to cope with the changes.

Your project should be colorful, attractive, and informative.  You need pictures to illustrate everything you describe.  Handout is on the handouts tab of my teacher website.

Discuss.

20 comments:

  1. Can I choose a bluebonnet as my organism?

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  2. for natrual disasters would it be okay to use a flood and not the others that are listed

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  3. yes sweety you can, it says plant or animal. wake up fruitcake(: jk ily<3

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  4. are we aloud to put videos from youtube on how they mate/reproduce?

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  5. @anon1 plants are swell, just make sure the bluebonnet lives in one of the regions listed for the project (Gulf Coast, if it does).

    @John/Myles if you pick hurricane, it will include flooding. If your ecosystem is not right on the coast, flooding from the rains are probably what it would experience most from a hurricane.

    Also, youtube videos are fine so long as they are nature videos, not people making fun of the mating.

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  6. but our animal is located in north western south america in flooded places.... hurricanes dont hit on the left..

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  7. How do we make a picture of what our organism looks like after many generations after the natural disaster? Do we just draw something?

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  8. @Myles/John you do need to pick a natural disaster from the list, we're looking for something that will cause long-term change to an ecosystem; flooding is only temporary.

    @anon--drawing is great, and you can also use the computer if you'd like. If you're in BCIS you'll have had some experience using photoshop and could work on that part at school.

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  9. I'm confused about how to describe the organism's niche. Are we just supposed to describe its diet and behavior, or something else?

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  10. @ Anon-- niche is it's job in the ecosystem--is it a producer that provides food for wallabies, a top predator, a secondary consumer that feeds coyotes and keeps rabbits under control. Tell me what it does to contribute to the ecosystem.

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  11. When it says "Explain how natural selection would work on remaining genes of the population," does that mean how natural selection would change the genes of the current population?

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  12. When it says "Explain how natural selection would work on remaining genes of the population," does that mean how natural selection changes the genes? And to what population does it refer to?

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  13. Sorry for the double post, I'm guessing it lagged and didn't show the first time...

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  14. @ anon--natural selection doesn't make new genes, it just picks the genes that produce the best phenotype (traits) for the changed environment.

    There are 3 sections of the rubric that are pretty similar, check the points section (4 points, 3 points, etc) to see what I am looking for to fulfill that requirement.

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  15. When it says how natural selection would work on the remaining genes of the population, and what would be the results? What kind of results?

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  16. So the rubric asks you what genetic variations are possible for your organisms (color, size, litter size, eye size, color vision, jumping/climbing/running ability, etc). So once your natural disaster has wiped out much of the ecosystem and the population of your organism, how can the rest of the population adapt, using the genetic variations already present.

    Over time this will accumulate as radical change, which you will represent with a computer-altered or hand-drawn picture showing your organism after many generations.

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  17. i havnt been able to find anything on the genetic variation of my animal ive tried evrything and i dont know what else to do :/

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  18. In class, I told you not to expect to find genetic variations online, but to think about what might be possible for your organism. Read the above post for suggestions.

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  19. i lost my list, is it on your teacherweb?

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  20. Everything is on the teacherweb, just go to handouts.

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