biomes of Arda

Organisms have arrived from Earth and are now stablished on planet Arda. But Evolution has not stopped and without the presence of humans and some of their predators and prey on Earth they are evolving rapidly. You need to write a report on how an organism evolves on the new planet.

The Evolution Project:

Step 1: Due date: 9/11/02 or Day 2 of that week
You need to pick an organism, real or made up that you are going to evolve. Keep in mind that you will need to eventually find a picture of it or draw one. Identify its physical and behavioral characteristics and explain why it has them. Give your organism a name. Create an environment for this organism to live in on one of the continents of planet Arda, (describe its habitat). Describe the physical settings, climate, natural resources, etc. Also describe other organisms that interact with yours, i.e. competitors, predators, prey, food sources, symbiotic relationships. Animal Profile Form

Step 2: Due date 9/11/02 or Day 2 of that week
Now create a story of how this environment changes over a time period of between 2 to 10 million years including changes to organisms with which your organism interacts. Begin creating a timeline. Use the maps of the changes in planet Arda to help you.

Step 3: Due date 9/18/02 or Day 2 of that week
Develop a story for the evolution of your organism over time. (2 - 10 million-year time frame should do.) Develop your timeline in the form of an evolutionary tree that shows the change in time, change in population size, speciation events, extinction events, major events, etc. Explain the changes in your organism in terms of natural selection and evolution. Make sure you include the concepts we have covered in class, and use terms accurately. Remember that adaptations can be both internal (inside its body) and external, as well as physical or behavioral. So use a range of ideas. You will need to be detailed explain how these changes came about. What were the selection pressures? How did the environmental change trigger selection events? What was going on with the other organisms interacting with yours?

Step4: Due date 9/25/02 with final project
Create images of your organism at five different points along the time line. (Including the starting point.) Assemble final project and presentation.

Your final project MUST include: Due 9/25/02

A baseline description of your organism and its environment
4 changes directly resulting from an environmental change
physical and behavioral adaptations
a detailed timeline in the form of an evolutionary tree
images for each stage of the evolution of the organism
at least one graph illustrating a type of selection
at least one speciation event should occur
a detailed explanation of each selection event and the variations that were selected

Presentation:
This project can be presented in several formats. On poster board, as a power-point presentation, or as a web site. You may be asked to talk about your project to the class.

Some Ideas:

Mountain chains are pushed up changes rainfall patterns and the flow of rivers.
Climate can change due to global warming or the onset of an ice age. Sea levels can drop or rise opening up new habitats and land bridges to islands. Climate can be effected by ice ages, volcanoes releasing greenhouse gases into the air, plate tectonics, man and asteroid impacts.
New species can move into an area leading to increased competition for resources.
Mass extinction events have triggered rapid evolution events when species are removed and new habitats are opened up for organism to expand into. We are currently undergoing the sixth mass extinction in the history of the Earth.
Competition between other organism for resources, density of population etc has a major impact on selection pressures.

Be creative. Try to have a variety of pressures, it may not be just one pressure that causes the changes. Think of examples you have seen in class and in videos.

Finally we be looking to see that your ideas make sense in terms of what has been taught in class. The changes can't be too drastic if the time frame you are working in is short. But the rate of evolution can vary depending on population size, breeding time etc.
We are looking for detail like graphs of population changes, diagrams of vegetation etc.

Check how it will be graded here!