Discussion Questions:
Did your experiment result in better flying birds? Describe your engineered bird and compare it to your best flyer.
Although it is possible that there were errors in our measurements, increased flight was observed in later generations of origami birds. The initial parent, with a wing to body ratio of 3x20 and 3x20 had a flight distance of 1.33 meters, while the youngest bird with a ratio of 3x20 and 3x19 achieved a flight of 3.20 meters.
Evolution is the result of two processes: variation and selection.
How did your experiment produce variation among the offspring?
Our experiment produced variation among offspring by a series of dice tossed and coin flips. The dice roll resulted in the particular variation and the coin toss determined if that particular change occurred at the head of
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Our experiment selected the best performing (in flight distance) offspring to become the next Generation's parent. This models selection by demonstrating how only the best fit birds were able to pass on their "genes" to the next generation while the others "die off," and represents the process of evolution through natural selection.
Compare your youngest bird with your neighbor's youngest bird. Describe how they are similar and how they are different.
Our neighbor's youngest bird was relatively similar to our youngest bird in the sense that both had a smaller front wing and a larger back one. They varied with small changes in wing size or position. However, overall the best flying shape among the groups we observed was a larger back wing and a smaller front wing.
Predict the appearance of your youngest bird's descendants if…
The selection conditions remain the same and the longest flying bird survives to produce the most offspring.
The future offspring would most likely have a smaller front wing and a larger back wing, based off of our current data of those characteristics flying the