Living Environment
Student Work
Unit Lesson #
Lesson 22. Artificial Selection
through Selective Breeding
Name:
Period ______
Laboratory Experience ##
Worth ### Lab Minutes
Date :
Bridge
How did Homer “mess” with the genes in these plants to produce
something new? How does this effect natural selection?
Objective:
Introduce the
concept of
selective
breeding as a
means of
artificial
selection
Essential
Question:
How have
people interfered
in the process of
natural
selection?
Mini Lesson
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Living Environment
Student Work
Unit Lesson #
The word artificial refers to something “man-made” or not natural. If natural selection is the
The process of selecting genes based on “best fit or most fit” organisms to reproduce, artificial
selection would be when people choose those organisms based on “best fit or most fit” for their
purposes.
Work Period
Directions:
You will take on the role of the “artificial selector”. Your group will be faced with a task that
people have solved over thousands of years. Let’s see how you meet the same challenges they
did!
Task 1. You are a farmer. Your livelihood depends on making sure that you produce the best
strawberry crops out there so that people will buy your product and not your competitors. How
will you do this?
Task 2. You are a Native American in a tribe that is trying to go from a nomadic lifestyle to a
village lifestyle. The chief of the tribe has selected a location near a very clean river and stream
system. Your village is renowned for their hunting and gathering skills, but the chief wants a
more stable food supply. You have been charged with organizing this for your village. While you
are out gathering food, you came across a plant that had yellow kernels that were very sweet to
eat but were very small and after a year, you found they took a very long time to grow. However,
you had also found another plant that looked very similar to the plant with the yellow kernels, but
these kernels were very bitter and not very good to eat but the kernels were twice the size and
they grew much faster than the yellow kernel plant. How could you get a crop that produced the
sweet yellow kernels that were larger and grew faster?
Task 3. You are a rancher. You are known for your purebred horses, that come only from the
best stock. However, each of your breeds has only one desirable trait to perform one specific
job: Your Clydesdales are known for being very large, hardy animals that are great for pulling
carriages and doing heavy work on farms. Your Arabian breeds are known for their racing
abilities. Your Andalusian stock make excellent riding horses and well suited for dressed events
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Living Environment
Student Work
Unit Lesson #
such as horse shows and performing show stunts like jumps and minor courses and have
personable temperaments. You also have a few breeds of ponies that make excellent riding
horses, especially for females and children since they are smaller in size and have easy going
temperaments as compared to your Arabians. You have kept very close records on your
breeding practices to ensure that the bloodlines are kept free of inbreeding but pure to their
species. You are approached by an individual interested in breeding a new kind of racehorse:
he wants something that is fast and well-tempered but smaller since his daughter is interested in
becoming a racer and he is worried about her trying to handle a stallion. How can you help this
man?
Task 4. You breed German Sheperds that are commonly used and trained as police dogs.
Sheperds are strong, loyal, easily trained in many areas if they are started young, and very
intelligent. But these same qualities that make sheperds such great police dogs can cause
issues within the police department as well: lately the sheperds are becoming overly protective
of their handlers and attacking fellow officers and with their speed and strength they are
dangerous. Also, with the rise in drug related crimes, the sheperds are not as well equipped with
locating drug stashes as previously believed and even more recently the technology being
developed on explosives has rendered many practice searches failures. Sheperds are also
known for hip dysplasia and can only work for 5-6 years before they are retired. The police
department has asked you to look into creating a breed that keeps the positive traits that the
sheperds have to offer but would be more accurate in locating drugs and explosives during
searches, less likely to attack fellow officers unprovoked but without losing the protective instinct
when dealing with criminals on the street, and have longer working lifespans. Luckily you have
been branching out in your breeding practices and have been breeding beagles, black Labrador
retrievers, golden retrievers, Rotweilers, German Shorthairs, and Doberman Pinchers so there
has to be a solution right in your own breeding grounds. How could you assist the police
department with their request?
Once your group believes they have solved their task, share with the other group that did the
same task. Come to an agreement on what you would like to present to the class as your
solution.
Present your solutions, getting feedback from audience members for pros and cons of this
procedure.
Once done, students will watch the video clip on the “Supercows” to see how scientists have
blended selective breeding practices with technology to ensure that their gene manipulation is
successful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDN-QeVhQTc
Summary
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Unit Lesson #
How have people interfered in the process of natural selection?
Closing
How was the “Supercow” different from the breeding solutions that you came up with in your
task? What could the possibly want with a cow that big and muscular?
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Living Environment
Student Work
Name:
Unit Lesson #
Period ______ Date :
Independent Practice
Regents questions on selective Breeding
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Living Environment
Student Work
Name:
Unit Lesson #
Period ______
Date :
Title of Lab: ______________________________________________________
Exploration
Use this space to record observations that relate to the question being investigated. Also record
researched facts that might relate to the investigation as well.
Question
Record your question that you will be investigating here. It is best to write it in a “Does
__________________ affect ________________? Format so the variables are easy to identify (first
line is always the independent variable, second line is always the dependent variable)
Identify your Variables
Independent Variable:
Dependent Variable:
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Unit Lesson #
Prediction/Hypothesis
Based on the question that you asked, record your thoughts on what the result will be and why. Use
the “I think ___________________________________, because ______________.” format.
Experimental Design
List the materials that you are going to use and the procedure (steps) you are going to take to test your
hypothesis.
Materials:
Procedure:
Data Collection
Use this space to organize and collect your data. Remember, data can be qualitative (descriptions,
words, observations) as well as quantitative (numbers, values). Use both kinds of data when you can.
Organize your data into a table with a title, make a graph whenever you can, and use the variables to
help you do this!
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Student Work
Unit Lesson #
Data Analysis
Put your data into words. This will be a relationship of your variables: what happened to the dependent
variable when you changed the independent variable?
Evaluation
This is where you talk about your experiment. Discuss how your results compare to your hypothesis:
do you agree or disagree with your original thoughts and use evidence from your experiment to back
this up. Second, discuss sources of error (at least 2), or things that could have gone wrong in your
experiment. Finally, develop a further investigation question: based on what you found out in this
experiment, what else do you wonder about? Again, use your “Does ________ affect __________”
format for this question.
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