Natural History Museum & Planetarium <strong>Build</strong> a <strong>Cladogram</strong>GPSKindergarden: SKCS1, SKL21 st Grade: S1CS12 nd Grade: S2CS1, S2L13 rd Grade: S3CS1, S3E24 th Grade: S4CS1, S4CS6, S4L2, ELA4LSV15 th Grade: S5CS1, S5CS6, ELA5LSV16 th Grade: S6CS1, ELA6SLV17 th Grade: S7CS1, S7CS6, ELA7SLV1Note: This activity is not recommended for K-3 rd graders.Objective: Students will connect with the exhibits in the Natural History Museum andPlanetarium by learning about animals and their adaptations to changing environments throughgeologic time. Using the resources in the Natural History Museum, students will learn how scientistsconstruct cladograms to help determine how animals are related to each other.Pre-visit activities: Students will better understand and learn from this activity by being exposedto the following topics before their trip to the Natural History Museum and Planetarium.Students should learn about adaptations. For reference study these animals and theiradaptations: anteaters, armadillos, dolphins, beavers, shrews, penguins, bats, and birds (birdsare particularly informative because of their different beaks).Post-visit activities: Students will more likely connect and retain information from the resourcesin the Natural History Museum and Planetarium by doing post-visit activities that requires use ofthe information to complete certain tasks. These tasks may include:The worksheets may be returned to the students or groups with all the research they were ableto do in the museum. Teachers may want to allow additional research after the field trip.Branching diagrams (cladograms) and how they are constructed will be discussed in theclassroom. The specific organisms, adaptations, and relationships will be hypothesized and abranching diagram (cladogram )of individual organisms will be constructed.Vocabulary:Adaptation: an inherited change in organisms that makes them better suited to survive andreproduce in a particular environment.Evolution: The change in genetic composition of a population over successive generations,which may be caused by natural selection, inbreeding, hybridization, or mutation.Convergent evolution: A kind of evolution where organisms evolve structures that have similarappearance or functions in spite of their recent ancestors being unrelated.Divergent evolution: The process by which a species diverges into two or more descendantspecies, resulting in related species to become more and more different.<strong>Cladogram</strong> - a branching speciation diagram depicting patterns of shared characteristics oforganisms.
Simple <strong>Cladogram</strong> ExamplesVipers: presence of heatsensing pits along topof mouthSNAKES: no legs or limbsREPTILES: amniotic eggscales,
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