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Natural SelectionActivity for Kids

Natural Selection Model DIY

Duration: 20 min
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $0 to $5

Learn how to model natural selection!

Visit The Full Lesson Download Instructions as PDF

Material List

1Stopwatch
1Green piece of paper
1Pair of sunglasses
1Piece of bubble wrap
1Pair of tongs
1Variety of colorful items, like paperclips

Instructions

1Scatter the colorful items on the green paper.
2Fold the bubble wrap around the sunglasses and put them on.
3Start your stopwatch timer and collect as many colorful pieces with the tongs as you can see, one at a time.
4Stop after 20 seconds.
5Observe which colors you collected and which ones you missed.
6Try it with a different color of paper.

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How It Works

Most of the green paper clips remained because they have a trait that helped them survive in the environment. Geen paper clips are harder to notice on green paper so they got picked up less often. If you did this with yellow paper, most of the yellow clips would be left. That is natural selection at work! Over many generations, it can cause major changes in living things.