Colton McOmber Anthro 1020 2/1/2020

Natural Selection Lab Report

2. Introduction

a. Darwin’s finches by David Lack

&

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/07/how-darwins-finches-got-their-beaks/

The Galapagos finches also referred to as Darwin’s finches have a wide verity of

beaks despite the birds all having around the same body size and climate. This is due to

each island being different so that various beak sizes can form and preform with each

beak being good on one island while not being as effective as on another island. This

Lab Experiment that we preformed helped the class understand and to see how natural

selection played its part with the Galapagos finches.

b. Hypothesis

I. We thought that the amount of tweezers would go up, that

tweezers would be the most common, chopsticks would be eliminated Or that they

would go down, that there would be more chopsticks than clothes pins at the end and

that there would be more tweezers than tongs at the end.

II. When we thought up this hypothesis, we were looking at the

different shapes and sizes of the various tools we had been given and made our

hypothesis based on what we thought would function best to pick up sunflower seeds.

3. Materials and Methods

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a. In this experiment we used a wide variety of tools such as tongs, clothes pins,

chopsticks, tweezers, hairclips and binder clips.

b. All 27 students were given 1 tool to use (of the ones listed above) and 1 paper

cup. We had a set amount of time to use those tools to pick up as many sunflower

seeds as possible and to put them into the cup. The tools represented the different

types of beaks that the Galapagos finches have in their population. The seeds

represented the amount of food that they could pick up within their lifespan. At the end

of each set time that we were given the 3 students with the least amount of seeds had

to give up their tools because the fiches they represented had “died” from not getting

enough food and where thus unable to reproduce. The 3 students that had the most

survived with excess food and where able to “produce two offspring” giving their type of

tool to those who lost theirs so that the more effective tool would increase within the

population (classroom). The students in the middle got enough food to produce 1

offspring so they didn’t have to give up their tools and get new ones. This repeats itself

for a few rounds so that you can see the shift in the population to the more appropriate

beaks (tools).

4. Results

a.
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b.
Tools in population
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Gen 1 Gen 2 Gen 3 Gen 4 Gen 5

c. In the charts

above we can see that the tongs gradually increased as did the tweezers. The

chopsticks slowly dwindled. While the clothes pins dwindled as well, they eventually

made a comeback at the end and increased the amount circulating in the classroom.

Hair clips had a constant 5 throughout all the “Generations” while the binder clips died

out as soon as they were introduced.

5. Conclusion

a. Just as predicted the tweezers went up and they were also the most common.

The chopsticks were not eliminated but they did go down. There were not mor

chopsticks than clothes pins. There were more tweezers than tongs.

b. The tweezers went up and where the best because of the size and the use of

the tool in real life are designed to be picking up and messing with objects that are

around the size of sunflower seeds. Thus we see that steady increase over time of

tweezers.
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c. With the inclusion of the binder clip our chart was thrown off by one. As you

can see the numbers don’t add up in Gen 4, thus we can use generation 4 as a good

reference and it would have had to be scraped or redone if this was a experiment we

would be publishing.

d. Because all people are different, and we all have different skills the results

could vary. For instance if this experiment was done in Japan or China I believe that the

chopstick category on the graph would look very different because they can handle their

chopsticks better then we could (or at least better than I could and I was one of the

chopsticks, the last surviving one at that) thus allowing them to pick up their seeds

better. But it would still change from generation to generation in the experiment and

show to prove that different environment favor different tools (beaks).

6. Discussion

a. The scientific method

 Question/Observation: The how, what, who, where, why, which and

when of what you are observing or measuring.

 Research: The use of all available means to learn more about the

Question/Observation.

 Hypothesis: A educated guess on how the Question/Observation will be

answered.

 Experimentation: Test whether your Hypothesis is correct or not.

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 Conclusion: The collection of measurements and answers achieved via

the Experiment. If what was achieved was not the desired result, then

make a new Hypothesis and repeat the steps.

There are lots of fields of study that use the scientific method. It is a great way to prove

a point or at least support a point. It is used in law, criminal investigation, construction

and a plethora of other things. In fact, I used it on my LDS mission.

b. This activity demonstrated the scientific method because we had a question, a

hypothesis, a experiment and a result.

c. Like I said earlier I had used It on my LDS mission, and I use it in my

arguments.

d. The theory of evolution by natural selection.

 Variation exists: There are always going to be differences in individuals

in a population.

 More offspring produced than can survive and there is only a limited

amount of food and water that can go around.

 The individuals with variations that help them withstand the

environment best will survive.

 Variations can be passed down to their offspring

 Over time the population will change to best fit their environment.

e. This activity simulated the theory of evolution by natural selection because

when tools were better at picking up seeds than the rest, they increased in size
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proportionate to the population (classroom). Were as the tools that were less effective

decreased in the population (classroom).

7. References

a.

I. David Lack, (1947). Darwin’s Finches.

II. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/07/how-darwins-

finches-got-their-beaks/