Learn about how organisms adapt to their habitats. This video is part of The Virtual School's "Adapting and Living Together" chapter within our Ecology and Environment topic.

Deer mice live in many different habitats across North America. In each subpopulation, their fur coloring is a good match to their habitat. How did this come to be? Students run simulated experiments controlling habitat, predators, and displays of data. An optional datasheet can be used to structure quantitative work. The activity includes suggested questions for students to investigate, with particular attention to how the adaptation occurs solely at the population level, while natural selection operates on individuals.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Cases of the fungal disease candidiasis in infants have been increasing over the past two decades, but our understanding of the behavior and evolution of Candida spp. outside laboratory models has been lacking. Researchers assembled new C. albicans and C. parapsilosis genomes using data from premature infant feces, hospital surfaces, clinical samples, and non-hospital environmental samples. Relative to an existing reference genome, the C. parapsilosis genomes analyzed had genomic “hotspots” of single nucleotide variants, and the C. parapsilosis genomes from premature infants had hotspots that matched hospital and subway surface samples, which may suggest a common ancestor. The researchers also analyzed a microbial gene expression time course in one infant being treated for Candida infection. The in situ transcriptomic profiles were highly variable relative to cultured C..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Adaptation of Empoword by Shane Abrams. Link to original text: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/pdxopen/20/

This adaptation slims down the original by cutting student texts, activities, assignments, and the metacognitive section. Intended for use as a reader.

This activity focuses on retelling and performing a story that has been formatted from a traditional version to the setting of the Old West. When retelling a story to someone else, it is important to have the sequence and all parts to the story in correct order. The beginning of a story generally tells who the characters in the story are and what the problems may be. The middle generally explains what attempts were made to solve the problems, and the end generally has the solution, results, and how the story ends. For this activity, students should be familiar with the original tale so they will see the parallel between the original and the adapted version. As you are preparing to retell/role-play the story, you will need to discuss the main characters the students will be portraying and decide what simple props, if any, may be helpful in telling the story.

This is an example of a large coordinated project designed to adapt school yards to heat waves.

After learning about and exploring plant and animal adaptations, students research local organisms with interesting adaptations and share findings with their classmates. Students identify adaptations globally by analyzing a documentary.

Educators Guide for this unit:
http://education.eol.org/lesson_plans/2-5_Adaptations_LessonOverview.pdf

Lessons in this unit:
Adaptations Activity 1: Adapting to the Environment
Adaptations Activity 2: Physical Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 3: Behavioral Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 4: Go Adapt!
Adaptations Activity 5: Create a Creature

Students explore the adaptations that allow beavers to thrive in aquatic environments, then make observations and inferences about the functions of diverse bird beaks.

Students discuss the migration of monarch butterflies as an example of behavioral adaptations, then act out the behavioral adaptations of organisms in charades.

Students synthesize their understanding of adaptations by playing a “go fish” style game to collect sets of organisms with physical and behavioral adaptations.

Educators Guide for this unit:
http://education.eol.org/lesson_plans/2-5_Adaptations_LessonOverview.pdf

Lessons in this unit:

Adaptations Activity 1: Adapting to the Environment
Adaptations Activity 2: Physical Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 3: Behavioral Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 4: Go Adapt!
Adaptations Activity 5: Create a Creature

Students apply their understanding of adaptations by designing their own organisms to survive in different habitats.

Educators Guide for this unit:
http://education.eol.org/lesson_plans/2-5_Adaptations_LessonOverview.pdf

Lessons in this unit:

Adaptations Activity 1: Adapting to the Environment
Adaptations Activity 2: Physical Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 3: Behavioral Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 4: Go Adapt!
Adaptations Activity 5: Create a Creature

If you could create a new creature, what adaptations would it have and why? In this activity students design a trait card for an organism using behavioral and physical adaptations to help it survive in its environment.

Students will use knowledge of adaptations to compare the structures and functions of plants. These likenesses are passed down between parent plants and their offspring

STUDENT ACTIVITY – 4th -- TXThis is a distance-learning lesson students can complete at home.Students will use knowledge of adaptations to compare the structures and functions of plants. These likenesses are passed down between parent plants and their offspring.This activity was created by Out Teach (out-teach.org), a nonprofit providing outdoor experiential learning to transform Science education for students in under-served communities. .

This lesson will tie into the Nebraska science standards below. Students will learn how to search Worldbook KIDS online to study different animals and plants, as a class and independently. With a teacher’s help, students will then learn about animal and plant adaptations that help them survive in their habitats in order to come up with a solution to a human problem. The standards in bold print are the ones that will be the classroom teacher’s focus, but the librarian’s goal will be to introduce students to Worldbook KIDS as a reference source.It can easily be adapted to be a whole unit. Please let me know if you would like to help/edit this lesson to enhance it!

Students learn about adaptations of the pink river dolphin through concept mapping, and then they compare pink river dolphins with marine dolphins.

This activity first asks the students to study the patterns of bird flight and understand that four main forces affect the flight abilities of a bird. They will study the shape, feather structure, and resulting differences in the pattern of flight. They will then look at several articles that feature newly designed planes and the birds that they are modeled after. The final component of this activity is to watch the Nature documentary, "Raptor Force" which chronicles the flight patterns of birds, how researchers study these animals, and what interests our military and aeronautical engineers about these natural adaptations. This activity serves as an extension to the biomimetics lesson. Although students will not be using this information in the design process for their desert resort, it provides interesting information pertaining to the current use of biomimetics in the field of aviation. Students may extend their design process by using this information to create a means of transportation to and from the resort if they chose to.

Adapted from OpenStax by Darlene Young

Short Description:
Introductory Statistics follows scope and sequence requirements of a one-semester introduction to statistics course and is geared toward students majoring in fields other than math or engineering. The text assumes some knowledge of intermediate algebra and focuses on statistics application over theory. Introductory Statistics includes innovative practical applications that make the text relevant and accessible, as well as collaborative exercises, technology integration problems, and statistics labs.

Long Description:
Senior Contributing Authors Barbara Illowsky, De Anza College Susan Dean, De Anza College

Word Count: 227030

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically as part of a bulk import process by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided. As a result, there may be errors in formatting.)

These lessons show how to modify and adapt Hiking for a inclusive classroom