In this project we were given a tub of roughly 75 pieces of metal hardware that ranged from screws and nails to washers. We were told to sort and classify all of these metal hardware pieces into groups based on physical characteristics they present when first looked at. We then had to create an evolutionary tract of each of the pieces of metal and explain what the metals began as and how over time due to natural selection did they change their characteristics to better their survival in the environment. We had been learning about evolution at the time of doing the project and this was a good way to provide an example of a real world situation because scientists classify animals in the exact way we did and track their ancestors throughout history. We drew out a cladogram on poster paper to provide a physical representation of our evolution of these metals and wrote a story to explain why these animals has to adapt and evolve over time. Both are shown below.
One day a volcanic eruption created the plastica nonhelica. This species had ridges to protect themselves. However this did not protect them so a mutation occurred that caused their brittle insides to be protected by hard metal. This protected the plasticum metallica from predators. The volcanic eruption created thousands of rocks that littered the ground and disrupted their habitat. This is when the metallum continuus was created. This species was able to climb under rocks and live. When they left the rocks, birds swooped down and easily picked them up, this led to a mutation that created the orbis continuous species. Being circles they were able to roll away easier, and were harder to pick up. After they turned into circles they mutated to become thumbtacks because they had to find a way to survive the massive tornadoes that swept through their land. This species was called orbis acer. When there seemed to be no more tornados their sharp extrusions were slowing them down while hunting so over time they disappeared. A random mutation occurred that split each of the organisms creating the orbis non continuous and another mutation occurred which created padding so that they could jump from rock to rock safely creating the Orbis gummy species. Overtime they evolved caps to protect themselves from falling ashes from another volcanic eruption. This species is called Helical Orbis continuous. Slowly the caps disappeared and half of the population evolved to have rubber of the insides. Unfortunately this help no benefits for their species, so they all died. The other half of the population evolved from having a cap to having handles. This speeches was the Orbis ansa. Although these handles made it easier for them to swing from tree to tree, it also made it easier for predators to grab them out of mid air. Due to this their handle slowly disappeared and only their bodies were left. More and more animals appeared in their habitat so they had to find a new home. They decided to live in the ground so they evolved to have threads around her body so they could dig to make the new home. This created the Helica Flavus species. Although being gold made them stand out, which they liked it also made them extremely easy to spot from far away. To help them hide, they change their color to become camouflage. This new species was the Helica praefloro. When they thought they needed a change they moved to the beach. What they didn't know was that the beach was filled with shiny silver rocks and being tarnished made them stand out again. So again they changed their color, this time to shiny silver so they could camouflage in the rocks. This was the Helica argentes species. While digging their new home they met many new animals. Most of these animals were nice, but one species, the gophers, were not. The gophers would chase them around saying they were hungry and that the color silver made them taste better than any of the other animals. To save themselves they turned black to match the dirt and to see underground, creating the Helica ater. As they were digging further and further down the dirt continuously became tougher. To get through the dirt they evolved to become stronger which made them fatter. This was the Helica steal-dux species. They also evolved to have a large eye to see better underground. At this point another random mutation occurred to half of the population. This mutation turned half of them silver again which quickly attracted the gophers and all the Helica longus were eaten. After eating the Helica longus the gophers were poisoned which killed a few of them, and the rest of them moved away because they were afraid that they would get poisoned too. This made it possible for the Helica stela-dux species to come back to the surface and turn silver again. While digging upwards they put much pressure on their small bodies which made them smaller and fatter, creating the Helica grandus species. As the ground got easier to dig through half of the Helica grandus species slowly lost their sharp tail becoming the Helica terebrare species. The two different families then had an unfortunate and horrible fight which made those without the sharp rail move away. Those that still had the sharp tail mutated back to being skinnier instead of fat creating the Helica Normativum species. Predators of these creatures drove them up into trees which turned them into the Helica Flexus species. However, they kept falling off the trees until a mutation occurred that curved their head, and they could hook themselves onto the branches. To better conform to their new environment the curve became less pronounced to get food. This species was called the Helica Flexus non continuous species. The predators left the ground, so they could adapt to live back on the ground becoming the convexus crux-dux. One day a continent collided with their continent, and another species was developed. This species was the convexus linea-dux species. The convexus crux-dux species evolved into the triangulum crux-dux because of birds picking them up, so they became small. The convexus linea-dux evolved into the Triangulum linea-dux because birds picked them up too, so they also became smaller. However, the Triangulum crux-dux and the Triangulum linea-dux competed for the same food, so they ate each other. A new species was found, this was the Talea Helica species, whose food source was the talea Flexus and eventually killed them because they ate them all. To conform to their new diet less ridges were formed creating the talea tuberculum species. This species turned into the Talea parvus-dux species because they got taller to eat food off the trees. The Talea parvus-dux species turned into the Talea normativum species because their head got larger to conform to their larger brain. They then turned into the Talea grandus-dux because their brain grew even larger. To better suit their tough environment they turned iron becoming the Talea ferrus species. To fight off predators they turned into the Talea hacer. A nuclear bomb went off and caused them to mutate into the Talea parvus, which mutated again from the remaining radioactive waste and finally became the Talea Longus species.
Content
Evolution: the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth Speciation: the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution change or the process of change by Adaptation: A change an organism or species undergoes to become better suited to its environmen Natural Selection: survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype Speciation: the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution Species: is a group of people affiliated either by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence Genus:a principal taxonomic category that ranks above species and below family, and is denoted by a capitalized Latin name Species: largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction Cladogram:a branching diagram showing the cladistic relationship between a number of species Classification: the action or process of classifying something according to shared qualities or characteristics Phenotype: the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment Genotype:the genetic constitution of an individual organism Competition: the activity or condition of competing to survive in an environment How this connect to the project: All of these ideas and pieces of content connect to our project because they either added a basis of learning for us or helped us along the way throughout the project. Concepts like evolution, speciation, competition, and natural selection all gave us an idea on how animals go extinct which helped us create our story. Other concepts like genus, phenotype, genotype,classification, and species all helped us create and make out cladogram. So by using all these terms we were able to finish our project the best we could.
Reflection
In this project we had to be very creative on how we described the animals adaptations throughout history. We all brainstormed ideas together which only made our group stronger and more open to ideas. Due to this I was extremely open to to other's ideas and it was very easy to bounce ideas back and forth in a positive manor. Another thing I did well was staying on task. This project left a lot of openings for free time and my focus ans staying on task with others constantly distracting you is one of my weakest attributes. I hope my work ethic and determination on future project will continue to improve. A few things that were challenging during this project for me was first getting motivated on a topic in biology that isn't my favorite. At first it was really hard for me to view myself doing well on this project but I feel that only fueled me more to do my best work. I was going to take this project and topic and make the best of it and I know my best work was shown in the end product. Overall, I was very surprised and this project has been one of my favorites this entire year and next time I won't judge a book by its cover without looking deeper into it.