Text Set Lesson Plan Template

Teacher Candidate: Matthew DeBellis Date: June 5th 2015

Subjects: Biology/ Evolution Grade Level: 10

Lesson TitleExamining Darwins Observations (Second day exploring evolution)

Context and Class Profile This lesson is designed for a class in Plattsburgh, NY. The class has 25 students, 10 girls and 15 boys. 22 of the students are white, 1 Korean and one student of African descent. The Korean student is an ELL student. There are 3 students with disabilities. All three are varying cases of Autism, and there is an additional faculty member in this period for this reason. Free lunch is given to 50% of the students in the district.

Content and Language Objectives

(align with Blooms Taxonomy)

1. Students will describe the interrelatedness between natural selection and descent with modification.

2. Students will define the following vocabulary found in the text: natural selection, descent with modification, generation, tree, competition, heritable variation

Acceptable Assessment Evidence

1. Evidence that students have achieved objective # 1 will be utilizing a pre-constructed concept map with blank spaces. Students will then collaborate, supporting their reasoning for each word placement, along with describing trends, definitions and examples.

2. Homework is researching an example in nature of natural selection and another for descent with modification. Example can be picture, diagram, text or video.

3. Observation as an informal assessment. The teacher should monitor activities very meticulously, and be moving around the classroom surveying and providing feedback to students.

Cross-Curriculum Connections

Science: Biology, evolutionary biologySocial Studies: History, historical figure analysis, historical artifact analysisELA: Analyze multiple articles on related topics, practice discussion skills, practice vocabulary skills, practice decoding skills.

Common Core/National Standards

( Only the ones assessed)

Standard 1Performance Indicator 1.1b- Learning about the historical development of scientific concepts or about individuals who have contributed to scientific knowledge provides a better understanding of scientific inquiry and the relationship between science and society. Performance Indicator 1.2a- Inquiry involves asking questions and locating, interpreting, and processing information from a variety of sources.

Key Idea 3: Explain the mechanisms and patterns of evolution.

Literacy Strategies Used Turn and Talk, Vocabulary Prediction, Partner Reading, Text Annotation, Sketch the text

Academic Vocabulary Natural selection, descent with modification, generation, tree, competition, heritable variation

Materials Needed (including the text set) and Technology Used Game/ Interactive Videohttp://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/evolution/evolution.html

Current Events Selection Article Sloths are no slouches when it comes to evolutionhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140910083846.htm

Darwins First Theory Paper (attached below)Selection Diagrams and Darwins Finches(attached below)Page From Darwins Diary

Chart Paper, Markers, Pencil and Paper

Procedure

Intro/ Hook:-The teacher will recap/briefly summarize the lesson the day before and ask the class What makes a species become extinct? This process of whether animals thrive or die out is called SELECTION. Consider this example, if my favorite and only food comes from the sandwich tree, which holds its fruit this high (point above reach) am I going to be able to eat? If I dont eat will I survive? And if I dont survive is it likely my offspring will survive or that I will even have offspring? Lets say Bobby, who is a little taller than I am also likes to eat from the sandwich tree. Will he survive and pass on his genes to his offspring? This is called natural selection. And the differences in generation from offspring to offspring is called DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION. Charles Darwin observed these processes and was one of the first to make note of them while on voyage of the Beagle.

Text Set:-Teacher will introduce text set. Students will go to stations in pairs (groups of 3 or 4 if a larger classroom).-Teacher will explain first text set, Interactive video simulation. Students will play through the simulation on the computer and use the strategy of turn and talk; A guidance note will be posted on the computer with questions: What was effective or not effective about this video? What did you understand? What didn't you understand?-Teacher will make clear that the computer is only for video purposes and should not leave the video window.-Teacher will introduce next text set of the article Sloths are no slouches when it comes to evolution. Students are to use the Vocabulary Prediction strategy. There is a sheet at the station to fill out predicted definitions to the vocabulary. Students will share their predictions about the article, read the article and share if their prediction was correct or not. This station is meant to read independently.-Teacher will introduce the next text set which is a passage from Darwins Diary. This passage is more intense and requires Partner reading. Students should follow the directions at the top of the packet at the station.-Teacher will explain Darwins journal diagram. This piece is to be taped to chart paper, and to be used with the text annotation strategy. Remind students to not only ask questions but to respond to other entries. Observe that they have enough time set aside to respond before station time is up.-Teacher will explain selection picture diagram. Students will use the sketch the text strategy and follow the directions at the top of the page. Summary (read the text, visualize what you read and then sketch a quick image of what you were visualizing- variation, students will sketch their own example of selection)

Post-Discussion:-After all students have been to each station gather students back together for the final discussion. Ask What did you notice to be a common theme among these pieces?-Teacher will introduce the concept map, already drawn out on the chart paper. The goal is to match the words correctly, justifying and defining each placement of the prewritten post-it notes. Define that each line downwards indicates depends on the next term its connected.

Conclusion:-Teacher will survey the class. What was difficult to grasp? What do you understand now that you didnt before encountering the text set? How would you explain (x) term to someone who is unfamiliar to it? The teacher will then announce the homework. Homework is researching an example in nature of natural selection and another for descent with modification. Example can be picture, diagram, text or video. Be ready to share your example tomorrow.

Accommodations/Differentiations

Providing materials of different literacy levels. The diagrams have comic book like simple reading along with a diagram to assist comprehension for students struggling with reading. Darwins journal entry is very sophisticated text and is a challenge for skilled readers. Integrated technology for students intimidated by text, with trouble engaging with text or reading paper passages. Differentiation is to show students how to work laptop, they may not have one at home. The concept map at the end helps ELL students because they can see the word up on the page along with hearing the definition being explained or expressed in different ways by their peers.

Time Required50 minutes

Reflection:

Partner Reading: Read the highlighted text. Collaborate, decode and translate what Darwin is describing for each highlighted passage. (1) It is wonderful what the principle of Selection by Man,can dothat is the picking out of individuals with any desired quality, & breeding from them, & again picking out, can do. Even Breeders have been astonished at their own results. They can act on differences inappreciable to an uneducated eye. Selection has beenmethodicallyfollowed inEuropefor only the last half century. But it has occasionally & even in some degree methodically been followed in the most ancient times. There must have been, also, a kind of unconscious selection from the most ancient times, namely in the preservation of themost usefulindividual animals (without any thought of theirbreedingoffspring) most useful to each race of man in his particular circumstances. The "roguing", as nurserymen call the destroying of varieties, which depart from their type is a kind of selection. I am convinced that intentional & occasional selection has been the main agent in making our domestic races. But, however, this may be, its great power of modification has been indisputably shown in late times. Selection acts only by the accumulation of very slight or greater variations, caused by external conditions, or by the mere fact that in generation the child is not2)absolutely similar to its parent. Man by this power of accumulating variations adapts living beings to his wants, may be saidto make the wool of one sheep good for carpet & another for cloth &c.(2.) Now suppose there was a being, who did not judge by mere external appearance, but could study the whole internal organization who never was capricious,who should go on selecting for one end during millions of generations, who will say what he might notdoeffect! In nature we have someslightvariation, occasionally in all parts: & I think it can be shown that changed conditions of existence is thegreatmain cause of the child not exactly resembling its parents; & in nature geology shows us what changes have taken place & are taking place.In regard to the number of generationsWe have almost unlimited time: no one but a practical geologist can fully appreciate this: think of the Glacial period, during the whole of whichshellsthe3)same species of shells at least have existed: there must have been during this period, millions on millions of generations.(3) I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work onnatural selection(the title of my Book), which selects exclusively for the good of each organic being. The elder Decandolle, W. Herbert, & Lyell have written strongly on the struggle for life; but even they have not written strongly enough. Reflect that every being (even the Elephant) breeds at such a rate, that in a few years, at most a few centuries or thousands of years the surface of the earth would holdthesethe progeny of any one species. I have found it hard constantly to bear in mind that the increase of every singlebeingspecies is checked during some part of its life, or during some shortly recurrent generation. Only a few of those annually born can live to propagate their kind. What a trifling difference must often determine which shall survive & which perish.[in left margin]the progeny of any one species wdcover the surface of the earth(4(4) Now take the case of a country undergoing some change:& not freely open to immigrationthis will tend to cause some of its inhabitants to vary slightly; not but what I believe most beings vary at all times enough for selection to act on.Its inhabitants would be exposed to new conditions;Some of its inhabitants will be exterminated, & the remainder will be exposed to the mutual action of a different set of inhabitants,(which I believe to becan be shown to bemore important to the life of each being than mere climatechange.NowConsidering the infinitely various ways, beings have to obtain food by struggling with other beings, to escape danger at various times of life, to have their eggs or seeds disseminated &c &c, I cannot doubt that during millions of generationssome slight inindividuals of a species will be born with some slight variationprofitingprofitable to some part of its economy: such will have a better chance of surviving, propagatingits varietythis variation, which will be slowly increased by the accumulative action of natural selection; and theincreasing by accumulation, & finally[illeg]variety thus formed will eithercoexisting withcoexist with or more commonly will exterminate its parent form. An organic being like the woodpecker or missletoe may thus come to be adapted to a score of contingencies: natural selection, accumulatingonlythose slight variations in all parts of its structure, which are in any way useful to it, during any part of its life.(5(5) Multiform difficulties will occur to everyone on this theory. Most can, I think, be satisfactorily answered. "Natura non facit saltum" answers some of the most obvious. The slowness of the change & only a very few undergoing change at any one time answers others. The extreme imperfection of our geological records answers others. (6.) One other principle, which may be called the principle of divergence plays, I believe, an important part in the origin of species. The same spot will support more life if occupied by very diverse forms: we see this in the many generic forms in a square yard of turf(I have counted 20 species belonging to 18 genera) or in the plants & insects on any little uniform islet belonging almost to as many genera & families as to species.We can understand this with the higher animals, whose habits we best understand. We know that it has been experimentally shown that a plot of land will yield a greater weight if cropped with several species of grasses than with 2 or 3 species. Now every single organic being, by propagating so rapidly, may be said(6to be striving its utmost to increase in numbers. So it will be with the offspring of any species after it has broken into varieties or sub-species or true species. And it follows, I think, from thesame areaforegoing facts, that the varying offspring ofany oneeach species will try (only few will succeed) to seize on as many & as diverse places in the economy of nature, as possible. Each new variety or species, when formed will generally take the place of & so exterminate its less well-fitted parent. This, I believe, to be the origin of the classification or arrangement of all organic beings at all times. These alwaysseemto branch & sub-branch like a tree from a common trunk; the flourishing twigs destroying the less vigorous,the dead & lost branches rudely representing extinctforms.-genera & families.This sketch ismostimperfect; but in so short a space I cannot make it better. Your imagination must fill up very wide blanks. Without some reflexion it will appear all rubbish; perhaps it will appear so after reflexion. C. DarwinThis was sent about 9 months ago, but I daresay I can get Date[6v]Sketch sent to Dr Asa GraySketch sent to Dr Asa GrayThis was sent to A. Gray8 or 9 months agoI think October 185

Text annotation: This is a page directly from Charles Darwins journal. What do you notice? What do you think he was thinking? What questions do you have?

READ FIRSTAnalyze these diagrams. What do they illustrate? Do some illustrating of your own with a different animal example.

When the prey, (the organism being eaten) adapts to being eaten, they change. The predator is then selected for better fine-tuned capturing methods! These finches are an example of this. Think and illustrate another example of variation.

VOCABULARY PREDICTION: Before you read the text, try to define each word. Then, make a prediction about what the article will be about. Make a to discover statement.

EvolutionCompetitionDiversify

Final Collaboration Concept Map- each line down depend on next term