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| Genetic Diversity |
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Proficiency Standards
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| | SC 1.1.10.1 | | Formulate questions and use appropriate concepts to guide scientific investigations and to solve real world problems. | | SC 1.1.10.5 | | Construct and revise scientific explanations and models using logic and evidence. | | SC 1.1.10.7 | | Select, communicate, and defend a scientific argument. | | | | SC 2.5.10.1 | | Describe immediate and long-term consequences of various alternative solutions for science- and/or technology-related issues , e.g. natural catastrophes, interactions of populations, resources and environment, health and disease. | | SC 2.5.10.2 | | Defend a personal decision made on a science- and/or technology-related issue. | | | | SC 2.6.10.2 | | Demonstrate, by giving examples, the relationships between the maintenance and progress of society and scientific and technological advancement. | | | | SC 3.1.10.5 | | Explain how the characteristics of living things depends upon genes. | | SC 3.1.10.10 | | Explain how new genetic traits can arise and become established in a population, e.g. mutation of DNA, new gene linkages, crossing over, etc. | | | | SC 6.1.10.4 | | Predict how certain changes in the system will/will not affect the operation of the system. | | |
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Brief Description:
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| Students read an article on the diversity of the cheetah and discuss a series of questions. The class breaks up into small groups to discuss fictional species that are given. They are asked to determine which variants are advantaged or disadvantaged, and |
| Source: |
American Associationfor the Advancement of Science |
| Contributor's Name: |
ScienceNet |
| Contributor's Email: |
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| Contributor's Affiliation: |
American Associationfor the Advancement of Science |
| URL: |
The site for this activity.
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| Learning Activity Process: |
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"The purpose of this lesson is to develop an understanding of genetic diversity and how heritable characteristics can influence an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. This lesson builds upon prerequisite middle school benchmarks, especially the ideas that individual organisms with certain traits are more likely than others to survive and have offspring and that changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species. At the high school level students need to shift from thinking in terms of selection of individuals with a trait to changing proportions of a trait in populations. In this lesson, students will look at genetic diversity and how it affects the survival of species. If genetic diversity becomes low at many genes of a species, that species becomes increasingly at risk. There is a substantial amount of research related to the benchmark ideas in this lesson, and it is recommended that teachers familiarize themselves with these findings to help them guide student understanding. Particularly relevant are the findings that students have difficulties understanding that changing a population results from the survival of a few individuals that preferentially reproduce, not from the gradual change of all individuals in the population. Explanations about 'insects or germs becoming more resistant' rather than 'more insects or germs becoming resistant' may reinforce these misunderstandings." |
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