READ: Charles Darwin and Natural Selection

Lesson Objectives

• Understand that inherited traits, such as the basic color of skin or a person’s bone structure, are passed on to future generations.
• Understand that acquired traits, such as a tan or being good at soccer, are not passed on to future generations (they are not inherited).
• Understand that evolution is change of an inherited trait in a population over many generations, such as the change of the color of moths living on an island over many generations.
• Understand that natural selection means that organisms with traits that help them survive in their environment are more likely to survive than organisms without that beneficial trait.
• Understand how evolution explains:
  • Why populations change.
  • Why there are so many different kinds of organisms on Earth.
  • Why some organisms that look alike are only distantly related.
  • Why some organisms that look very different are actually closely related?
• Know that both Darwin and Wallace developed the theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time.