Students explore the diversity and adaptations of marine arthropods.
Through a sequence of “explore-before-explain” laboratory investigations, coupled with segments from the Shape of Life videos, students study molluscs in the present and their long evolutionary history. The module includes those listed below, which can also stand alone.
In this hands-on activity, students study the beautiful shells not as objects of beauty but as artifacts born of an evolutionary arms race.
Lab dissection of a representative of Class Bivalvia. Supported by several Shape of Life segments, students interpret bivalve adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A simple ancestral snail with a mobile lifestyle, single dome-shaped shell, bilateral symmetry, and a head (“cephalization”) transformed into a headless, double-shelled, sedentary filter-feeder whose bilateral form is obscure.
This lesson begins with students engaging in the practice of science -- observing the phenomena, describing their observations, and making sense of what they see. They observe annelid behaviors using a Shape of Life video with the audio turned off. They try to figure out what the phenomenon (the behavior) is, how it might help the organism survive, and how it might impact the environment. Working with a partner, they make hypotheses about what they are observing and organisms' adaptions that allow it to perform the behavior.
Students explore the evolution of the phylum Chordata by constructing a "family tree" - a diagram of evolutionary traits and animals.
The paleontological evidence of the first animal to hunt is tiny trails that have been fossilized in rocks. To start this lesson, students will consider the tracks and traces left by modern animals and what they can learn about an animal from its tracks. They then think about which animal might have been the first hunter. The class considers what it takes to be a hunter and what kind of evidence can we use to figure out what was the first hunter. Students write their ideas in their science notebooks and the teacher shares the ideas with the entire class.
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.
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.
In this lesson students make a guess as to what was the first animal. The class watches the Sponge video from the shapeoflife.org and writes down what evidence they saw that sponges were the first animals. Then the class discusses what evidence they need to figure out what might have been the first animal. They watch the scientist video “Mitchell Sogin, Evolutionary Biologist: Proof of the First Animal” and write down the evidence that is presented for the sponge being the first animal.
In this lesson students engage in the practice of science by observing behaviors using Shape of Life videos with the audio and closed captioning turned off.
In this lesson students make connections between fossils and modern day organisms. Using the information about the Cambrian Explosion, they explore theories about how and why organisms diversified. Students hypothesize what evidence might be helpful to connect fossil organisms to modern organisms to show evolutionary connections. Students use three videos from shapeoflife.org.
