April 1-7

Building Beasts: Adaptation & Evolution Design Project 🧬🦖

📅 Started: April 1
📅 Presentations: April 7
📌 Project counts as a quiz grade
📌 Hard copy only – no digital submissions accepted

In this creative evolution project, students are demonstrating their understanding of adaptations and how they drive evolution by designing a completely new, original organism—called a “beast”—that can survive in a randomly generated environment.

🧪 Project Overview:

Students rolled dice to determine their beast’s:

• Environment (e.g., snowy mountains, desert, swamp, ocean)

• Soil type

• Vegetation

• Animal type (mammal, insect, reptile, etc.)

• Body coverings (fur, slime, spikes, etc.)

• Mouthparts (for feeding)

• Predator type
  
  

Using this information, students created realistic adaptations that would help their beast survive and thrive in its environment.

✍️ Students then chose ONE of two options to complete the project:

1. The Drawing Option

• Colorful illustration of the environment

• Fully drawn and labeled beast with adaptations

• Drawings of both the beast’s prey and predator

• Clear labels showing how each trait helps with survival
  
  

2. The Essay Option

• A three-paragraph written description including:
  ✅ Detailed description of the environment
  ✅ Introduction of the beast and its adaptations
  ✅ Description of its prey, predator, and survival strategies
  
  

🔄 Mutation Challenge – CATASTROPHE Round!

After building their beasts, students faced a catastrophic environmental change (e.g., flooding, pollution, drought, meteor impact).
They then had to:

• Draw the newly mutated version of their beast

• Write two paragraphs explaining the new environment and how their beast adapted to survive
  
  

🌍 Why This Matters:

This project helps students apply their understanding of natural selection, mutation, and adaptation in a fun, hands-on way. It reinforces that organisms evolve over time based on environmental pressures and survival needs.

✅ Be prepared to present your beast and its adaptations to the class on April 7! Let’s see how your creatures evolved to rule their environments! 🌿🦎✨