Handouts

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    Preconceptions about Evolutionary Trees - Student Edition
    In this lesson, students will address misconceptions about phylogenetic trees before completing a modeling activity to give them a better understanding of how trees are used to model evolutionary relationships.

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    The Cambrian Explosion - Student Edition
    In this lesson, students will watch a short film about the Cambrian Explosion and the extraordinary fossils of the Burgess Shale. Students will address preconceptions and misconceptions about early Cambrian life, and complete a timeline activity that will enable them to better appreciate just how recently—relatively speaking—multicellular life evolved on Earth.

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    Ages of Rock - Student Editions
    This collection consists of six lesson plans designed to help students construct an explanation of the geologic time scale based on personal connections, science concepts and nature of science ideas.

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    Marine Arthropod Adaptations and Design - Student Edition
    Students explore the diversity and adaptations of marine arthropods.

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    Let’s All Do The Wave! - Student Edition
    This lesson consists of a cross disciplinary activity incorporating aspects of wave characteristics from Physics, movement traits from Biology, and evaluating locomotion design from Engineering. Students can be introduced to the idea by showing the video Arthropod Locomotion: Engineering from the shapeoflife.org or other videos of animals that exhibit wave-like characteristics during motion. Class discussion can begin by analyzing the necessity to move efficiently and how moving in a wave-like manner could be beneficial.

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    Life in the Fast Lane: From Hunted to Hunter - High School and Middle School Editions
    Lab dissection of a squid, a member of Class Cephalopoda (along with the octopus and nautilus). Supported by several Shape of Life segments, students interpret squid adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A line of ancestral snails abandoned the life of sluggish grazing and foraging in favor of a new niche as speedy open water predators. Students will understand that the shelled, but squid-like nautilus, is a “transitional form” en route to the swimming, shell- less cephalopods. Finally, they use the squid to explore another macroevolutionary pattern: convergent evolution.

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    Molluscs: Gastropod - High School and Middle School Student Editions
    A brief hands-on investigation of Class Gastropoda (snails and slugs), followed by a critical thinking exercise centered on segments of the Shape of Life. Students first examine the bodies and behavior of live slugs or snails, then use water balloons to model their unique style of locomotion, and finally tackle a series of analytical questions designed to cultivate a grasp of divergent evolution: the branching of a single ancestral form into multiple new forms for diverse new functions, niches, and habitats.

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    Shell Shocked - High School and Middle School Student Editions
    In this hands-on activity, students study the beautiful shells not as objects of beauty but as artifacts born of an evolutionary arms race.

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    The Eastern Oyster: A Not-So-Typical Mollusc - High School and Middle School Editions
    ​A lab dissection using oysters and supported by several Shape of Life segments: students interpret bivalve adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution.

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    Terrestrial Arthropod Adaptation + Engineering Design - Student Edition
    Students explore the extraordinary adaptions and diversity of terrestrial arthropods through short Shape of Life videos and student-centered activities in the 5E Instructional Model.

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