1 / 7

Industrial Revolution's Impact on Peppered Moths

Participate in a natural selection simulation to understand how industrial pollution affected the evolution of peppered moths. Eat as many moths as you can and track the changing percentages of light and dark moths in different forest environments.

csimpson
Download Presentation

Industrial Revolution's Impact on Peppered Moths

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Then one day… the Industrial Revolution started (late 1700s). New factories burned coal either directly in steam engines and furnaces, or by making electricity with coal-powered generators.

  2. Over a period of years, soot produced by burning coal darkened the skies and blackened the trees nearby. Air pollutants dissolved in rainwater damaged the lichen and prevented them from growing on trees. By 1895, 98% of peppered moths in Manchester were black (Darwin died in 1882).

  3. You will participate in a natural selection simulation. Go on line to http://peppermoths.weebly.com/. Choose either a light forest or a dark forest. A population of moths will be released that is 50% white and 50% black. You play a hungry bird that eats peppered moths. Click on every moth you see to “eat” it. Your bird will make a crunching sound with each successful hunt, and a chirping sound with each failure. Eat as many moths as you can in the minute you have. Chart the percent of light and dark moths in your forest. Then choose the other kind of forest. The game is the same. Add your results to the class database. Calculate averages. Graph your results.

More Related