Hall/Kansteiner/McDougal

Creature creator project!

Essential Questions and objectives for the Evolution Unit

1.  How do organisms interact with each other and the environment?

2.  How are populations affected by environmental changes?

3.  How does energy flow through biological systems?

4.  Explain the connection between mutations, adaptations and survival of the fittest.

5.  Predict possible outcomes of natural selection on organisms given a set of selective pressures caused by changes to the environment.

Part 1—Creating a new Species!

In the first part of this project, you will create a NEW species of creature, that will inhabit some niche on your island, using a computer game called “Spore Creature Creator.” To get credit for this part of the project, you need to include:

  1. A picture of your new species of creature
  2. A name for the species
  3. A description including:
  4. Habitat – what niche on your island is this organism filling? What other organisms do they interact with and in what type of a relationship? Who do they compete with for space? What are other populations in their community?
  5. Food source – are they carnivore, herbivore, frugivore, decomposer, omnivore? What foods from their island do they consume? What special adaptations allow them to be good at getting this food?
  6. Predators of this creature (if any)
  7. Reproduction (sexual or asexual, number and care of offspring)
  8. ALL adaptations for survival
  9. Any diversity present in the population (for example, males vary from bright orange to dull orange and all females are lime green).

Part 2—Your Species Experiences CHANGE!!

In this part of the project, you will randomly be assigned an environmental change that will happen to your population of creatures. You will need to explain what will happen to your species, including:

  1. A description of benefits/problems the environmental change will cause for your species.
  2. Describe how the new environment will create selective pressures on your species.
  3. An explanation of variation within the population that provided adaptations on which natural selection could act.
  4. A description of what must happen genetically for new adaptations to appear so your species can survive.
  5. Describe how selection will occur.
  6. Describe how reproductive isolation, and thus speciation, will occur.
  7. A picture of how your species evolved to adapt to the change!

Project Requirements

·  Use the rubric as your guide for this project!

·  EVERYTHING GOES ON YOUR WIKI

Grading

This project will account for 5% of your grade on the evolution/ecology units.