Students investigate marine food webs and trophic levels, research one marine organism, this activity sand fit their organisms together in a class-created food web showing a balanced marine ecosystem.

In this activity, students study a graph illustrating the proportion of prey captured by three predators for each of six species of arthropod prey. The prey species are listed in order of palatability (based on a combination of all defenses, such as spines and chemicals) with the least palatable on the left and most palatable on the right. Students will analyze the graph and answer a series of questions to determine if members of a mimetic complex enjoy greater protection from predation than nonmimics.

This resource is a compilation of text, videos, and other elements to create a scaffolded 5E learning experience for students. In this lesson, students will identify some changes in genetic traits that have occurred over several generations through natural selection and selective breeding.

Students investigate how, through the process of evolution, animals have solved their engineering problems and how people have mimicked those natural solutions.

Students will learn how reesearchers are studying the connection between nest behaviors and the survival and growth rates of Carolina Chickadees.

The goal of this chapter is to help students understand the science concepts involved in immune response and in new technologies for manufacturing vaccines, as well as the exciting career opportunities available in this field. This chapter also is intended to provide a snapshot of some of the leading vaccine research and manufacturing efforts in North Carolina.

This interactive tool is based on the classic story of evolution by natural selection - the story of the peppered moths in England during the Industrial Revolution. The simulation uses green and orange bugs to demonstrate how natural selection influences the changes in species over time.

In this activity, students will brainstorm and observe how humans use their hands. They will then conduct a short experiment to determine the importance of the opposable thumb to humans. This experiment involves students taping their thumb to render it useless while they proceed to do an everyday activity. In the end students will have the opportunity to reflect on why the opposable thumb is an adaptation important to humans.

This brief video lesson discusses the parasitic relationship between jewel wasps and cockroaches. Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are also included.

During this investigation, students will observe the behavior of Dictyostelium discoideum when exposed to white light in an environment that has a limited food supply. Dictyostelium generally live independently of each other as single-celled amoebae, but when food is scarce, they aggregate to form multicellular mounds. Through several days of observation, students will collect data and graph the results.

During this lesson students will be exposed the requirements of plants for growth. Students will have the opportunity to become familiar with each requirement for plant growth, and what effect that requirement has on the plant.

In this lesson, students will make observations and inferences about the different structures and functions of plant physiology through a hands-on cycle of exploration. Students will rotate through a series of varied stations.

This brief video lesson discusses the evolutionary reasons for pruney fingeres. Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are also included.

This brief video excerpt, from Evolution: "Why Sex?", biologist Robert Vrijenhoek discusses the Red Queen hypothesis through the example of the Mexican Poeciliid fish. Vrijenhoek has been studying the Mexican Poeciliid fish for more than 30 years. Some species of Poeciliopsis reproduce sexually while others reproduce asexually. Vrijenhoek found that the genetic diversity produced by sexual reproduction allowed the sexual fish to survive a parasite more successfully than the asexual fish. Invoking the Red Queen hypothesis, Vrijenhoek suggests the sexual populations are able to keep up or adapt to new selective challenges, while the asexual populations, essentially clonal, are not. Supplemental resources, including a background essay and discussion questions, are also provided.

In this activity, students will create a poster to demonstrate the unique reproductive strategy of an assigned organism.

In this activity, students review a study in which a team of scientists studied the schooling behavior of stickleback fish by experimentally testing how individual fish responded to an artificial fish school model. Discussion questions are provided.

Students will create an inquiry based mini lab given materials in the area of plant science. Students will work together to design protocols, collect data, and analyze results. Lesson 2 out of 4

Students will become familiar with the bird-of-paradise expeditions and the scientists involved, learn how the scientists applied the scientific processes while studying the birds, and understand why the birds-of-paradise are a topic of interest to evolutionary biologists.

This brief video lesson discusses the many ways that gender is determined in a variety of animal species: from genetic inheritance of chromosomes to environmental pressures to cloning. How do animals reproduce and how is sex of the offspring determined? Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are included.