Provided by: Crash Course |Published on: October 18, 2022
Videos Grades 9-12, ap-college
Synopsis
This video discusses Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, the four principles of natural selection, and the types of selection that can occur in populations due to different types of selective pressures.
It uses the examples of moth color changes, bird beaks, and other phenotype differences to illustate the concepts and provides information about Darwin's own family.
This video is an engaging and easy-to-understand introduction to how populations undergo evolution and speciation through natural selection and other evolutionary pressures.
The personal information about Darwin is an interesting section that students may be interested to learn about.
Additional Prerequisites
There are many concepts introduced in this video, so it may be best to pause the video now and again so that students can ask questions and take notes.
Students should have a general understanding of terms related to biological evolution, like allele frequency and heredity.
By scrolling over the scroll bar at the bottom of the video, you can see at what point topics like Darwin's discovery of natural selection are discussed and skip through them if necessary.
Differentiation
Have students consider what role natural selection will play in a world where climate change and humans constantly affect ecosystems.
This can be connected to climate change topics easily in science classes when discussing how climate change will affect habitats, seasons, and extreme weather events.
This video can also be used in health classes during lessons about the effects of inbreeding on the health of future generations and in history classes during lessons about Charles Darwin and the development of the theory of evolution.