A Web-Based Study of Darwin's Finches

 

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2007, Volume 28

Janice Bonner

Abstract

This is a Web-based laboratory exercise based on the research of Peter and Rosemary Grant with the finches on Daphne Major in the Galápagos Islands. A portion of the Grants' database forms a computer program developed for the Biology Guided Inquiry Learning Environments (BGuILE) project at Northwestern University. The program can be downloaded from the website http://www.iqwst.northwestern.edu/finchesdownload.html. Students use actual field data and develop hypotheses to explain survival rates of birds under various climatic situations from 1977 and 1978, a period during which there were extreme climatic events on the island. Students compare their hypotheses with those published by the Grants in Science (Boag and Grant, 19891).

Keywords:  evolution, natural selection, finch

Purdue University (2006)