Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science

Classroom Resources > Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science > 6. Evolution and the Tree of Life > 6.4 Bottle Biology

Science

K-2, 3-5, 6-8

Evolution and the Tree of Life Bottle Biology

Bottle Biology Spotlight

To accompany Sessions 5 and 6, the “Field Population System” has been designed to demonstrate the fundamentals of evolution: variation, adaptation, and natural selection. What happens when an herbivore is introduced to three intermixed populations of plants? How might new species arise in this way? Check out Bottle Biology Spotlights to see how our experiment turned out, and for more information on building your own Bottle Biology systems.

Bottle Biology Spotlights: Session 6

System:	Activity Instructions:	Track Our Progress:
Field Population System	Selective Herbivory	See Our Selective Herbivory Results

Series Directory

Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science

Credits

Produced by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 2003.

Closed Captioning
ISBN: 1-57680-730-4

Sections

6.2 Evolution and the Tree of Life: A Closer Look

6.3 Children’s Ideas

6.4 Featured Classroom: Gail Modugno, Springfield, MA

6.4 Bottle Biology

Sessions

session 0 Bottle Biology | Bottle Basics

Session 1 What Is Life?

What distinguishes living things from dead and nonliving things? No single characteristic is enough to define what is meant by "life." In this session, five characteristics are introduced as unifying themes in the living world.

Session 2 Classifying Living Things

How can we make sense of the living world? During this session, a systematic approach to biological classification is introduced as a starting point for understanding the nature of the remarkable diversity of life on Earth.

Session 3 Animal Life Cycles

One characteristic of all life forms is a life cycle — from reproduction in one generation to reproduction in the next. This session introduces life cycles by focusing on continuity of life in the Animal Kingdom. In addition to considering what aspects of life cycles can be observed directly, the underlying role of DNA as the hereditary material is explored.

Session 4 Plant Life Cycles

What is a plant? One distinguishing feature of members of the Plant Kingdom is their life cycle. In this session, flowering plants serve as examples for studying the plant life cycle by considering the roles of seeds, flowers, and fruits. A comparison to animal life cycles reveals some surprising similarities and intriguing differences.

Session 5 Variation, Adaptation, and Natural Selection

What causes variation among a population of living things? How can variation in one generation influence the next generation? In this session, variation in a population will be examined as the "raw material" upon which natural selection acts.

Sessions 6 Evolution and the Tree of Life

Why are there so many different kinds of living things? Comparing species that exist today reveals a lot about their relationships to one another and provides evidence of common origins. This session explores the theory of evolution: change in species over time.

Session 7 Energy Flow in Communities

Communities are populations of organisms that live and interact together. The structure of a community is defined by food web interactions. The process of energy flow is the focus of this session as the interactions between producers, consumers, and decomposers are examined.

Session 8 Material Cycles in Ecosystems

Studying an ecosystem involves looking at interactions between living things as well as the nonliving environment that surrounds them. Life depends upon the nonliving world for habitat, as well as energy and materials. In this session, material cycles will be explored as critical processes that sustain life in an ecosystem.