Chewing on Change: Exploring the Evolution of Horses in Response to Climate Change

This lesson was authored by Jennifer Broo and Jessica Mahoney in 2015, containing three lesson plans designed for 9th – 12th grade students. It is located under the Lesson Plans and Curricula page of the CPET (Center for Precollegiate Education and Training) website.

TOPICS/THEMES

Fossils, Phylogenetics, Climate Change, Evolution, Co-Evolution, Geologic Time Scale, Morphology

STANDARDS

Next Generation Sunshine State Standards – Florida Science

SC.912.L.15.1
Explain how the scientific theory of evolution is supported by the fossil record, comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, biogeography, molecular biology, and observed evolutionary change.

SC.912.L.15.13 (lessons two and three only)
Describe the conditions required for natural selection, including: overproduction of offspring, inherited variation, and the struggle to survive, which result in differential reproductive success.

SC.912.L.15.15 (lessons two and three only)
Describe how mutation and genetic recombination increase genetic variation.

SC.912.L.15.3
Describe how biological diversity is increased by the origin of new species and how it is decreased by the natural process of extinction.

SC.912.L.15.4
Describe how and why organisms are hierarchically classified and based on evolutionary relationships.

SC.912.N.1.1
Define a problem based on a specific body of knowledge.

SC.912.N.1.3
Recognize that the strength or usefulness of a scientific claim is evaluated through scientific argumentation, which depends on critical and logical thinking, and the active consideration of alternative scientific explanations to explain the data presented.

SC.912.N.1.6
Describe how scientific inferences are drawn from scientific observations and provide examples from the content being studied.

SC.912.N.3.1
Explain that a scientific theory is the culmination of many scientific investigations drawing together all the current evidence concerning a substantial range of phenomena thus, a scientific theory represents the most powerful explanation scientists have to offer.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

HS-LS4-1 (lessons one and three only)
Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.

HS-LS4-4 (lessons one and two only)
Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

HS-LS4-5
Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.

Crosscutting Concept 1 (lesson one only)
Patterns. Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.

Crosscutting Concept 2
Cause and effect: Mechanism and explanation. Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.

Crosscutting Concept 6 (lesson one only)
Structure and function. The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.

Crosscutting Concept 7
Stability and change. For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.