Scribe 1/24/12

Hi guys! Today in class we talked more about evolution and continued watching the movie we started yesterday. For homework, we have to do the double bubble map comparing/contrasting Darwin and Lamark's theories on evolution. Also, we have to read sections 16.1-16.3. Lastly, we have to start working on finding a group and a topic for the project due February 28!

Some of the important topics we discussed today were:

• Variation- many of the organisms Darwin observed were similar but differed from island to island. He concluded some organisms were similar because they all descended from a common ancestor but developed differently to suit the environment they lived in

• Natural selection- how organisms adapt to their environment in order to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. Also, the environment determines which characteristics are beneficial to different organisms.

• The finches in the movie exhibited natural selection especially in their beaks
• there are two sizes of beaks- large and small
• during a year when there were smaller seeds, the finches with smaller beaks had a larger survival rate because their beak size was most efficient to eat the seeds.
• the next year, there would be more finches with smaller beaks because there were more finches with small beaks the year before to produce offspring with small beaks
• if during another year there were more seeds that were larger, the finches with larger beaks had a better chance of survival because their beak size best suited eating larger seeds

SYDNEY WILL BE THE NEXT SCRIBE