The Perfect Match

by: Julie Reynolds

A lesson that focuses on the intricate co-evolution of flowers with their pollinators is one way to help students learn the delicate balance in nature and help ensure that our actions do not upset this balance. In this lesson students use the engineering design process to engineer a flower that is a perfect model for its chosen pollinator. Next, they construct an explanation of the coevolution process that occurs between flowers and their pollinators. The lesson addresses HS-LS4-4 Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity from NGSS and covers Common Core Writing Standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1.B. The various activities in this lesson allow for individual work, whole class discussion, and group work consisting of groups of 2-3 students. This lesson is a great way to use plants as the model for teaching evolutionary concepts in a biology class, can be done in conjunction with other lessons on floral reproductive anatomy, or as a stand-alone lesson as long as attention is given to new vocabulary. At the conclusion of this lesson, students will have a model of a flower that they will use as an aid in constructing an argument on the coevolution of flowers and their pollinators.

Grade Levels

High School

Topics

Biology Curriculum Instructional Materials Life Science Three-Dimensional Learning

Details

Type Journal ArticlePub Date 4/1/2019Pages 7Stock # tst19_086_08_36Volume 086Issue 08

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