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EVOLUTION
Charles Darwin was a British scientist who chose to study how the environment affects the way that living things change over time. His main idea, which you may have heard of before, is known as the theory of evolution or natural selection.
The basis of Darwin’s idea is supported by the fact that all of us, every living thing, is made up of genes, or proteins that live in our bodies and help us to pass on certain information about how our bodies should look (like where our eyes and hands should go) and how we should function (like how to tell our stomachs to digest food or our ears to hear sounds). Our bodies pass on these genes to our children so that their bodies can function correctly and they can look like we do.
Have you ever heard of DNA?
Each of us has our own unique code of genes called DNA that make us who we are. If you look around the classroom, some people have curly hair, some have straight hair, some of us have darker skin while others have lighter skin, some of us are boys and others girls – the combination of genes that we receive from our parents are what determine these things and make each of us individual. Our individual differences or variations are what Darwin’s natural selection theory is based on.
Because the world around us is constantly changing, certain animals live better in certain places. Think about a very tall tree with leaves hanging down, for example. If there were all different shapes and sizes of animals living around the trees, which ones would most likely get to eat? Take 1 minute to draw the tall tree with leaves in the space below. Now draw the animal that would be able to eat these leaves next to the tree.
My Drawing
Why did you choose to draw your animal this way?
If you made your animal tall, then it should be able to reach the tall leaves to eat. What about the short animals? They will probably not be able to reach the leaves and get food. These animals will, most likely, not survive in this tall tree environment. What does this mean to Darwin and his theory?
Darwin would say, where there are tall trees with leaves to eat, taller animals will survive better and be a better fit for the environment. We call this survival of the fittest. Most of the other animals, whose features do not work well with these tall trees, will eventually die off or move to places which give them easier access to food. These changes and cycles over time give us different types of animals with different features and separate ways of living.
The concept of natural selection is simply these little changes taking place over time. It takes many, many years for a group of animals to go through their life cycle and die off if they do not fit well with their environment. Charles Darwin was the first person to study these small changes in our genes over time and how these changes brought about all different types of plants and animals since the beginning of the Earth.
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Science in Hawai‘i: Nā Hana Ma Ka Ahupua‘a – A Culturally Responsive Curriculum Project