The Teacher Guide is the driving and unifying component of this unit, Natural Selection and Common Ancestry. In this unit, students investigate the phenomenon of the similarities among organisms that seem to be related and ask questions about how these organisms are the same and different from fossils that have similar structures. The subtitle of this unit is How could living things today be connected to the things that lived long ago? Starting with an examination of extant and fossil penguins, student undertake the process of seeing both morphological similarities and differences. Then by examining horses and horseshoe crabs, students expand their understanding of connects between things that lived in the past and those that are living now. Step by step students develop a model that might explain how organisms change over time.  They examine the possible role of environment as they develop models of natural selection and possible common ancestry. This unit allows students to observe the phenomenon of a force acting through a distance in detail and then spend time working with classmates to analyze the shared experience, formulate new questions, and developing new strategies for answering them.

CKSci Middle School is an enhanced republication of the OpenSciEd Middle School project–with a unique, integrated Core Knowledge science literacy component.

Learn more about the CKSci Middle School Program