Unit 2 Essay Test: Answer any 2 of the following 4 questions.
1. A forest fire can grow, uses energy, move, and eventually die. Why, then, can’t it be classified as alive?
-listing other requirements (cells, DNA, water, reproduce, life span) (+4)
-saying that an organism has to have all of them, not just a few (+1)
2. Describe the Miller’s experiment and explain how it relates to the possible origins of life
-sterilized the inside of the container so that no ‘contaminants’
-put in things thought to be in primitive Earth (rocks, CO2, H2O, S, N, etc.)
-no oxygen
-heat, electricity, UV light
-yielded CHO (organic) compound
-couldn’t put in time
-maybe CHO could have combined to amino acids, proteins, cells
3..According to Darwin, how might the process of evolution occur?
-evolution takes long periods of time
-Natural selection is the mechanism
-in a species are variations, some of which are advantageous (adaptations)
-they will survive and pass those traits to their offspring
-change in environment leads to evolution (+1)
4. Discuss the geologic and biological history of the Earth.
-Earth is about 4.6 billion years old… that’s really, really old.
-species formed gradually
-from simple to complex
-Eras: Precambrian (longest), Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic
-mammals and humans are very “recent” (close to the ‘now’ end)
-hard for humans to understand periods of time necessary for evolution, etc