Adaptation Lab

Name ____________________________________________
ADAPTATIONS LAB ACTIVITY
ADAPTATIONS: physical trait of an organism that aids its chances of survival thereby
increasing its “fitness” to the environment.
Objective: To observe the importance of an opposable thumb as an adaptation.
Procedure:
1. Divide into groups of 4.
2. At your table, assign these jobs:
• timer
• recorder
• no opposable thumb (Mrs Thorpe will come and make this happen)
• opposable thumb
3. Have the appropriate student (opposable thumb, no opposable thumb) perform the
following tasks, timing them and recording the results.
Before starting, remove a layer of clothing & turn it inside-­‐out. Upon “go” turn
the clothing item the right direction and place it properly on your body. No
pants are to be removed. Only shirts that are worn in layers.
Tie your shoes.
Upon saying “go”, find the ACE within a deck of cards and slap it down on the
table.
Pick up and open your science textbook to page 50.
Place a “heads up” quarter on the table. Upon saying “go” pick up the quarter
and put it back on the table “tails up”.
Upon saying go, use the pair of scissors to cut a square out of the “Shape Sheet”
4. Have the Recorder enter the results from your group into the class data table.
Round to the nearest 10 th .
5. Copy all the results from the class data table into the chart below.
Graphing:
On the provided graph paper, complete the multiple line graph that Mrs Thorpe has
assigned you.
Data:
Identify the following elements of this experiment:
1. Control Group ________________________________________________________________________
2. Experimental Group ________________________________________________________________________
3. Independent Variable ________________________________________________________________________
4. Dependent Variable ________________________________________________________________________

Data Questions:
In the Data Section of your lab report answer the following questions:
1. Based on your observations during class, give three specific examples of ways in
which this adaptation (an opposable thumb) would aid in the survival of a non-­human
Primate in a natural environment.
2. Explain how this adaptation, along with a larger brain capacity, gives Homo sapiens
unique communication capabilities.
Analysis:
1. For your Conclusion, write one statement summarizing your graphed results.
“According to our data…”
2. Also include in the Conclusion section of your lab report: Write an Error Analysis
and list at least 3 parts of this activity that prevent it from being “well controlled”.
In other words, what are 3 additional variables that should be controlled