Biology Spec points covered Starter options Practical activity Teacher-led activity CB4a Evidence B4.4 Describe the evidence for 1) Ask students to think Challenge students to find out Ensure that students for Human Human evolution, based on about how humans or more about human evolution. understand that the Evolution fossils, including: other animals might huge timescales a Ardi from 4.4 million evolve in the future. involved in human years ago They could draw a evolution mean that the b Lucy from 3.2 million labelled picture to show fossil record is full of years ago how humans might gaps. It is for this c Leakey’s discovery of change and give a reason reason that scientists fossils from 1.6 million years why they might evolve in cannot agree on an ago. that way. evolutionary tree for human evolution and B4.5 Describe the evidence for 2) Ask students to jot various educated Human evolution based on down what evidence we guesses need to be stone tools, including: have for identifying how made to fill in the gaps. a the development of our ancestors lived in the Genetic analysis is stone tools over time following periods: 100 helping with the b how these can be years ago, 1000 years research but due to the dated ago and 100 000 years degradation of DNA with from their environment. ago. Take examples of time this is not a each and consider the complete answer to the reliability of the different problems of piecing kinds of evidence. together human Establish the idea that evolution. this leads to an incomplete record that Digital: Ideas about scientists are still trying human evolution video to fill in. CB4b Darwin’s B4.2 Explain Darwin’s theory of 1) Ask whether if one Divide the class into groups. Explain Darwin’s theory theory evolution by natural person in the class gets a Each group will get some pasta of evolution as a series selection. cold, everyone will? Elicit shapes of different colours (in of stages to help
Biology Spec points covered Starter options Practical activity Teacher-led activity CB4a Evidence for Human Evolution B4.4 B4.5 Describe the evidence for Human evolution, based on fossils, including: a Ardi from 4.4 million years ago b Lucy from 3.2 million years ago c Leakey’s discovery of fossils from 1.6 million years ago. Describe the evidence for Human evolution based on stone tools, including: a the development of stone tools over time b how these can be dated from their environment. 1) Ask students to think about how humans or other animals might evolve in the future. They could draw a labelled picture to show how humans might change and give a reason why they might evolve in that way. 2) Ask students to jot down what evidence we have for identifying how our ancestors lived in the following periods: 100 years ago, 1000 years ago and 100 000 years ago. Take examples of each and consider the reliability of the different kinds of evidence. Establish the idea that this leads to an incomplete record that scientists are still trying to fill in. Challenge students to find out more about human evolution. Ensure that students understand that the huge timescales involved in human evolution mean that the fossil record is full of gaps. It is for this reason that scientists cannot agree on an evolutionary tree for human evolution and various educated guesses need to be made to fill in the gaps. Genetic analysis is helping with the research but due to the degradation of DNA with time this is not a complete answer to the problems of piecing together human evolution. Digital: Ideas about human evolution video CB4b Darwin’s theory B4.2 Explain Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. 1) Ask whether if one person in the class gets a cold, everyone will? Elicit Divide the class into groups. Each group will get some pasta shapes of different colours (in Explain Darwin’s theory of evolution as a series of stages to help
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