Dinosaur Evolution Project

Type: Project

Grade Level: High School

Time Length: 1 week

Summary: Students pretend to evolve a dinosaur using Darwin's principles of evolution and watch how the dinosaur adapts to an environmental change. This is a very comprehensive project including natural selection, adaptations, chromosome and point mutations, gene pools, isolation, Mendel genetics, protein synthesis, fossils, ecology, competition,and speciation.

Standards: California - Biology 5c Students know how mutations in the DNA sequence of a gene may or may not affect the expression of the gene or the sequence of amino acids in an encoded protein. 5e Students know proteins can differ from one another in the number and sequence of amino acids. 7a Students know why natural selection acts on the phenotype rather than the genotype of an organism. 7c Students know new mutations are constantly being generated in a gene pool. 7d Students know variation within a species increases the likelihood that at least some members of a species will survive under changed environmental conditions. 8a Students know how natural selection determines the differential survival of groups of organisms. 8b Students know a great diversity of species increases the chance that at least some organisms survive major changes in the environment. 8e Students know how to analyze fossil evidence with regard to biological diversity, episodic speciation, and mass extinction.