The Meeting of Minds

Aim: What are the various

theories of evolution?

Miss LoMacchio
Do Now:
Choose a total of five vocabulary words from the word cloud and circle
the ones you do not know/have a question about and define/explain the
ones that you are familiar with
Spontaneous Generation
The idea that living organisms can arise from nonliving matter
Jan Baptista van Helmont
Belgian physician
Uncontrolled experiment
Placed wheat grains in a sweaty shirt
21 days wheat gone, mice present
Supported spontaneous generation
Francesco Redi
1600s Italian Physician
Sought to disprove the idea that maggots appeared on meat left
exposed to air

Hypothesis: maggots
developed from eggs laid
on the meat by flies
Proved : maggots did not
arise spontaneously from
decaying meat
Louis Pasteur
1860 French chemist
Hypothesis: presence of air
alone could not produce
microorganisms in broth
Found: Microorganisms that
developed in a nutrient
broth came from spores
and microorganisms in the
air
DISPROVED SPONTANEOUS
GENERATION!! S-shaped flask
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
French Biologist
Hypothesis: Evolutionary changes in animals were caused by their need to adapt to
changes in the environment
Evolution involves 2 principles:
The law of use and disuse
The more an animal uses a body part, the stronger and better developed that body
part becomes
The law of acquired characteristics
Characteristics developed through use and disuse can be passed on to offspring
Charles Darwin
Hypothesis: organisms with favorable variations in traits would be better
able to survive and to reproduce than organisms with unfavorable
variations
Natural Selection: nature selects the survivors, the result being evolution
Collaborating with Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin published his theory of
NS in On the Origin of Species in 1859
Activity
Students will work in pairs
One student assumes the role of Charles Darwin and the other of
Lamarck
Students will read the transcript to each other and then work together to
answer the analysis questions
Analysis questions will be collected
Exit Game - Kahoot
https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/59d21059-dc95-4b34-b36d-08f5373f3a9b