Evolution. It's important to know how organism change over time and recognize the diversity between species.
Adaptation
Natural Selection
Is important because a organism changes to best suit their environment and due to random chance.
It causes new species to occur and creates more diveristy
"Survival of the fittest." Species are only considered fit if they have adapted to live long enough to produce strong and viable offspring to pass on their genes to the next generation.
Main topic
Darwins Theory
Galapagoes island
Finches it introduced the topic of change over time and a rise of new species.
It's important to know about the history of Charles Darwin and how widely accepted his theory of Natural Selection as it is a concrete basic concept that stemmed the foundations of evolution and the idea of evolving from a common ancestor.
Taxonomy: important to know what categories organisms are put under and how they are all connected.
six kingdoms
BioDiversity
Two Types of Cells: Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. Important for when learning about their reproduction.
Impact on Society/Technology
Initiatives to deepen knowledge of the genetic basis of complex characters.
Advances in developmental morphology
Provides a solid scientific framework for understanding the emergence of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria and for analyzing the emergence and epidemiology of novel diseases, such as HIV.
Misconceptions
Evolution as a grand progressive ladder vs evolution as a tree.
Natural selection is an all-powerful force and it produces perfection. Many students also
Species choose to evolve, rather than due to the fact of environmental factors and successful reproduction.
Population Genetics
Hardy-Weinberg populations allele frequency and genotype remains constant when put in a constant environment.(When there is no change)
Gene Pool
Gene Flow: create genetic diversity
Phenotype is important to note that it varies depending on the genes and how it shows on the individuals
Genotype is the back bone of how organisms will act and look. It's important to tie back to their understand of DNA when mentioning this topic as it is the
Allele Frequency
Change
New Species
Macroevolution
Mutation
Gene flow
Student's need to know that genes are passed on to the next generation. it ties back to the "survival of the fittest" theory that Darwin brings up.
Genetic drift
Important for students to connect this idea of species separating due to random chance and environment especially when looking at closely related species. They could also bring up information that they learned from geography class.
+Time
Evolution doesn't occur in a short amount of time but rather over thousands of years. It's important for students to know the time period of a species changing and gaining new traits/functions.
Microevolution
Change in allele