Week 8

What did you learn this week? 

This week we began learning about natural selection. Some of the big ideas I learned in regard to natural selection was how we can make predictions about how populations can change overtime, there are variations in traits that can result in organisms ability to reproduce, and natural selection leads to predominance of particular traits in given populations. I also learned about the causes for natural selection such as mutation, adaptation, competition, chance events, and other environmental factors like temperature, water availability and geological conditions. Likewise, I learned that the basic idea of natural selection is that organisms with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing those traits to their offspring. 

How can you apply what you learned to your teaching in the future? 

I plan on applying what I learned to my teaching in the future by utilizing some of the activities we did in class. I think these activities were fun and interactive and will help students expand their knowledge on natural selection and mutation. In lab, we did a mutation activity where we learned about mutation in a fun and interactive way, using super heroes and super powers as a way to understand mutation. We also had a chance to explore different simulations that reviewed DNA and protein structure, another activity I would use in my future classroom either as review or while teaching about DNA. In lecture, we had a chance to also experiment with a simulation that helped us learn more about natural selection and survival rates. Again, this helped expand my understanding so I would like to use this my future elementary school classroom, I think the students would find it very engaging and educational. 

   

Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew? 

I already knew some facts about natural selection, like it's purpose and how it kills off some species or traits. However, I was able to relate what I learned to what I already knew because I was able to expand my understanding of what specifically causes natural selection to happen. Learning about the causes helped me realize that natural selection encompasses many different reasons for why a species or trait might be killed off. Having a review of natural selection was very helpful because not only did it refresh my brain on the reasons why it occurs, but it will help me be a better educator in the future because I have a lot of different resources and ways of teaching about natural selection that will in turn help my students expand their understanding.