Asexual Vs Sexual Reproduction Activity

Asexual vs Sexual Reproduction Activity

Advance Preparation for a classroom set of 30 students:

Materials: 30 Zip lock bags (one for each student), One Large Bag of M&Ms, sharpie, 30 copies of Asexual vs Sexual Reproduction Half sheet Handout, 30 copies o Asexual vs. Sexual Note guide

Preparation Procedures:

Separate the M&M's into groups by color

Label: 15 bags Sexual and the other 15 bags Asexual

Loading the bags

In the 15 Asexual bags

In the 15 Sexual bags

**RED is the winning color**

**If you have less than 30 students in the class, make sure when you eliminate bags that you end up with one asexual group for every sexual group (Ex. 20 students- 10 Asexual and 10 Sexual)

Put all loaded bags into grocery sac.

Classroom Procedure:

At the beginning of class, go around the room with the grocery sac of M&M bags, and have students pull out a bag randomly. As you do this, stress to students not to eat the candy until told to do so.

After passing out all the bags, pass out the Asexual vs. Sexual Reproduction Half sheet. Have students answer questions 1-4 by making observations of their bags.

Next have students find a sit next to a student with the opposite Reproduction. Students will answer questions 5-8 by making observations of their partner's bag.

You can either continue on with the activity or you could review the concepts of Asexual and Sexual Reproduction through the Power point notes and Note guide completion.

Cont. of Activity (before or after concept notes)

Set-up: Tell students the following: There are two things an organism wants to do- 1) Survive and 2) Make babies/Pass on their genes. Your bag of M&Ms represents your population of organisms. You are going to observe your population for the next 5 years to see what happens to your population when the environment becomes unstable. Put what happens to your population in question #9 of your half sheet.

Year 1

An invasive species came into the ecosystem and took over the food source of organism orange; they all died of starvation due to completion exclusion. (Students who have orange can eat them).

Year 2

A tornado forced a migrating predator into the ecosystem. It used the blue organism as a food source, and eliminated the entire population from the population. (Students who have blue can eat them)

Year 3

A new pesticide was used in the ecosystem and destroyed all the green vegetation. This caused the green organism to no longer be camouflaged within its ecosystem. Due to be vulnerable to predators, the green organisms were eliminated from the population. (Students who have green can eat them)

Year 4

A new bacteria strain evolved in the yellow organism causing the yellow population to be sick, and they all died due to lack of resistance to the new bacteria. (Students who have yellow can eat them)

Year 5

The brown organism had a mutualistic relationship with the yellow organism, and due to loosing its companion it no longer had a food source or protection from predators. Therefore, the brown population either starved to death or were eaten by predators. (Students who have brown can eat them)

Red is the Survival of the Fittest. They get to survive and produce offspring.

Lastly answer and discuss question 10 and 11 on half sheet

Asexual Reproduction

Sexual Reproduction