November 18 

Sub Day Expectations 

You are to work ​silently​ and ​independently​ for the duration of the period. ​Do not ask 
your neighbors​. 
 
Use this ​Google Timer​ to time yourself for each section.​ ​Make sure to turn the sound off. 
 
You can receive 8 stamps for today’s lesson. I included a reminder for these stamps in your 
directions. 
 

Part 1 - Do Now​ ​(10 min) 

LEFT SIDE
Follow Weebly instructions to complete the Do Now. They are typed again here for your 
convenience. 

1. Take out materials: 

a. Blue, black and red pens 
b. Highlighter 
c. Planner 
d. Charged Chromebook 
e. Science Notebook 
2. Write down homework in planner. 
3. Title the​ left page​ "​Unit 3 Lesson 3​" and ​today's date​. 
4. Title the​ ​right page​ "​Why are some people lactose intolerant?​" 
5. Add ​page numbers​ to both pages 
6. ADD THIS LESSON TO YOUR TABLE OF CONTENTS 
7. On the ​right page​, write "​OBJECTIVE​" and ​summarize​ today's objective​ (found 
above)​ in your own words. ​STAMP 1 
8. On the ​left page​, write "​DO NOW​. 
a. Copy the following Do Now prompt in ​blue ink​:  

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i. Were humans originally lactose ​in​tolerant and then became lactose 
tolerant? Or were they originally lactose ​tolerant​ and then became 
lactose ​in​tolerant? Make a hypothesis and explain your prediction. 
b. Respond to the prompt in ​black ink. ​STAMP 2 

Part 2 - Vocabulary​ ​(5 min) 

RIGHT SIDE  
1. Below the objective, write “​VOCABULARY​.” 
2. Create the following table in ​blue ink​ below the vocabulary title. Then, fill in the 
words and definitions in ​black ink​. In the final column, either​ draw a sketch​ to 
represent the vocabulary word ​or​ re-write the definition ​in your own words​. 

Word  Definition  Drawing/Definition in 

your own words 

convergent evolution  process where unrelated   

  organisms independently 
evolve similar traits as a 
result of having to adapt 
to similar environments  

mutation  when a DNA gene is   

  damaged or changed 
  leading to a change in the 
genetic message carried 
by that gene 
 
STAMP 3   
 

Part 3 - Reading​ ​(15 min) 

GOOGLE CLASSROOM
1. Go to Google Classroom and find the assignment titled “11/18 - Lactose Tolerance 
Reading.” Read the article and annotate it using CATCH annotation guidelines, 
included below for your reference. A copy of the article is also found below. 

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Lactose Tolerance in East Africa Points to Recent Evolution 

By NICHOLAS WADE DEC. 11, 2006 

A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples 
of East Africa. It is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes 
that occurred as recently as 3,000 years ago, a team of geneticists has found. 

The finding is a striking example of a cultural practice — the raising of dairy cattle — 
feeding back into the human genome. It also seems to be one of the first instances of 
convergent human evolution to be documented at the genetic level. Convergent 
evolution refers to two or more populations acquiring the same trait independently. 

Throughout most of human history, the ability to digest lactose, the principal sugar of 
milk, has been switched off after weaning because the lactase enzyme that breaks the 
sugar apart is no longer needed. But when cattle were first domesticated 9,000 years 
ago and people later started to consume their milk as well as their meat, natural 
selection would have favored anyone with a mutation (a genetic variation) that kept the 
lactase gene switched on. These mutations occur randomly in the population, were those 
who were lucky enough to be born with the mutation would be more likely to survive, 
reproduce, and pass on their advantageous trait. 

Such a mutation is known to have arisen among an early cattle-raising people, the Funnel 
Beaker culture, which flourished 5,000 to 6,000 years ago in north-central Europe. 
People with a persistently active lactase gene have no problem digesting milk and are 
said to be lactose tolerant. 

Almost all Dutch people and 99 percent of Swedes are lactose tolerant, but the mutation 
becomes progressively less common in Europeans who live at increasing distances from 
the ancient Funnel Beaker region. 

Geneticists wondered if the lactose tolerance mutation in Europeans, identified in 2002, 

had arisen among cattle-raising people elsewhere. But it seemed to be largely absent 
from Africa, even though cattle-raising people there generally have some degree of 
tolerance. 

A research team led by Dr. Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland has now solved 
much of the puzzle. After testing for lactose tolerance and genetic makeup among 43 
ethnic groups in East Africa, she and her colleagues have found three new mutations, all 
independent of one another and of the European mutation, that keep the lactase gene 
permanently switched on. 

The principal mutation, found among Nilo-Saharan-speaking ethnic groups of Kenya and 
Tanzania, arose 2,700 to 6,800 years ago, according to genetic estimates, Dr. Tishkoff’s 
group reports today in the journal Nature Genetics. This fits well with archaeological 

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evidence suggesting that cattle-ranching peoples from the north reached northern 
Kenya about 4,500 years ago and southern Kenya and Tanzania 3,300 years ago. 

Two other mutations were found, among the Beja people of northeastern Sudan and 
tribes of the same language family, Afro-Asiatic, in northern Kenya. 

Genetic evidence shows that the mutations conferred an enormous selective advantage 
on their owners, enabling them to leave almost 10 times as many descendants as people 
without such mutations. The mutations have created “one of the strongest genetic 
signatures of natural selection yet reported in humans,” the researchers write. 

The survival advantage was so powerful perhaps because those with the mutations not 
only gained extra energy from lactose but also, in drought conditions, would have 
benefited from the water in milk. People who were lactose intolerant could have risked 
losing water from diarrhea, Dr. Tishkoff said. 

Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 

said the new findings were “very exciting” because they “showed the speed with which a 
genetic mutation can be favored under conditions of strong natural selection, 
demonstrating the possible rate of evolutionary change in humans.” 

The genetic data fitted in well, she said, with archaeological and linguistic evidence 
about the spread of pastoralism in Africa. The first clear evidence of cattle in Africa is 
from a site 8,000 years old in northwestern Sudan. Cattle there were domesticated 
independently from two other domestications, in the Near East and the Indus Valley of 
India. 

Nilo-Saharan speakers in Sudan and their Cushitic-speaking neighbors in the Red Sea 
hills probably domesticated cattle at the same time, because each has an independent 
vocabulary for cattle items, said Dr. Christopher Ehret, an expert on African languages 
and history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Descendants of each group 
moved south and would have met again in Kenya, Dr. Ehret said. 

Dr. Tishkoff detected lactose tolerance among Cushitic speakers and Nilo-Saharan 
groups in Kenya. Cushitic is a branch of Afro-Asiatic, the language family that includes 
Arabic, Hebrew and ancient Egyptian. 

Dr. Jonathan Pritchard, a statistical geneticist at the University of Chicago and a 

co-author of the new article, said there were many signals of natural selection in the 
human genome but it was usually hard to know what was being selected for. In this case 
Dr. Tishkoff clearly defined the driving force, he said. 

As Dr. Tishkoff has found in the case of lactose tolerance, evolution may use the 
different mutations available to it in each population to reach the same goal when each is 

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subjected to the same selective pressure. “I think it’s reasonable to assume this will be a 
more general paradigm,” Dr. Pritchard said 

In animals, an important function of enzymes is to help digest food. Digestive enzymes 

speed up reactions that break down large molecules of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats 
into smaller molecules the body can use. Without digestive enzymes, animals would not 
be able to break down food molecules quickly enough to provide the energy and 
nutrients they need to survive. 

 
2. Read and annotate the text following CATCH annotation guidelines. 
a. C - circle unknown words (define them, when possible)  
i. At least 2 circled words 
b. A - acknowledge confusion (underline sentences that are confusing)  
i. At least 2 underlined sentences 
c. T - talk with the text (write comments or questions in the margins) 
i. At least 4 questions or comments 
d. C - capture the main idea  
i. 1 - 2 sentences at the end of the article to summarize the main point 
e. H - highlight important details (be careful not to highlight the entire text!) 
i. Generally, at least 1 highlight per paragraph.  
ii. Some paragraphs may be shorter or longer and might require more 
or less highlighting accordingly 
STAMP 4   

Part 4 - Reflections​ ​(10 min) 

LEFT SIDE 
1. Copy the following prompts/questions in blue ink and respond in black ink. 
a. Did lactose tolerance or intolerance develop in humans? How do you know? 
Where do you see evidence of that in the text?  
[Your response] 
Sentence Starters​: 

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● Lactose​ [tolerance]/[intolerance]​ developed in humans. This is seen 
in the text where it says, “...” 
b. How does the article describe a mutation? Is that aligned to your understanding 
of natural selection? 
[Your response] 
Sentence Starters​: 
i. The article describes a mutation as …  
ii. This ​[is]/[is not] ​aligned to my understanding of natural selection 
because…  
c. How does lactose tolerance serve as an example of convergent evolution? 
[Your response] 
Sentence Starters​: 
● Lactose tolerance serves as an example of convergent evolution 
because…   
STAMPS 5, 6 + 7 

Part 5 - CER ​(10 min) 

LEFT SIDE 
1. Copy the following prompts/questions in blue ink and respond in black ink. Your 
response must include a claim, direct evidence from the text, and reasoning. 
a. Explain how lactose tolerance developed as a result of evolutionary processes 
(i.e. convergent evolution and natural selection). Respond in the box below. 
[Your response] 
Criteria For Success​: 
● States an appropriate claim that clearly responds to the prompt 
● Provides appropriate evidence that supports claim 
● Uses scientific reasoning to support evidence and tie it back to the 
claim 
● Uses academic vocabulary: convergent evolution and natural 
selection 

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Sentence Starters​: 
● Lactose tolerance developed by…  
● This occurred because....  
● The text states, “...”  
● This shows that lactose tolerance…. because….  
STAMP 8 

Part 9 - Done Early​ ​(5 min) 

1. Make sure you completed Homework 11. 
2. Make sure your table of contents is up to date. 
3. Make sure you are not missing any classwork from last class. 
4. Read a book or an article from newela.com.