Structure and Function Natural Selection - HS
Overview
High school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade level. By organizing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Lesson - Hairy Beatles
Student Science Performance
Phenomenon: Most beetles appear to be covered with a smooth shell, but when viewed at magnification they appear to be hairy.
Gather:
1. Students explore – Use the website http://microsculpture.net/ to explore the beetles under multiple scales of magnification.
2. Students develop questions to investigate causes for how the hair-like structures function to help the beetle survive.
3. Students investigate valid and reliable sources to determine the function of hair-like structures on beetles.
(Teaching Suggestions: Use pictures from the website to introduce the phenomenon. Use 3x5 cards to have each group develop a searchable question related to how the hairy structures function to meet the needs of the organisms to survive.)
Reason:
4. Students construct an explanation supported by evidence for the causes of most beetles having hair-like structures on their bodies.
Class Discussion:
- How does the structure of the hairs function to meet the needs of beetles?
- Why do the hairs meet more than one function for beetles?
- How do the hair-like structures function for survival?
- How is the function of the hair related to the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within beetles?
- How do you think that natural selection was involved in the evolution of the hair-like structures?
- Why can natural selection occur more quickly in beetles than in mammals like whales?
(Teaching Suggestions: Focus discussion on both the idea of natural selection and structure and function. Help students to understand that the structure of the organism is a hierarchy of structures from cell to tissue to organ to the organism that function to meet the needs of the organism. The structures provide some organisms with a natural advantage to survive and reproduce. Organisms best adapted to a specific environment survive in that environment and pass that trait on to future generations.)
Communicate Reasoning:
5. Students develop an argument for how the evidence gathered supports the group’s explanation for why most beetle species have hair-like structures on their bodies. (SSW)
*See attached document below for full lesson.
Additional Lessons can be found at #Going 3D with GRC (Gathering, Reasoning and Communicating). Original authors were: Jill Rhoades and Georgia Long