Evolution

 

The phrase "survival of the fittest" is a commonly used moniker for describing natural selection, but it can be somewhat misleading. A more accurate description of natural selection might be "survival of the good enough." In the context of natural selection, "fitness" refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment. It doesn't necessarily mean being the strongest, fastest, or smartest, but being well-suited to one's environment. Fitness is relative, not absolute, and varies depending on the specific pressures or conditions of a particular environment. However, "survival of the fittest" can give the impression that only the most optimal, strongest, or best-adapted organisms survive, which oversimplifies the reality of evolution. "Survival of the good enough" captures the idea that in many cases, organisms don't have to be the absolute best in terms of traits or adaptations, they just need to be...

 Convergent evolution is independent evolution of different species that forms similar features. This can commonly be mistaken for divergent evolution, which is when related species form different features which causes them to split into two species. An example discussed in "Improbable Destinies" chapter 1 was how marsupials and mammals are evolutionary distinct but have multiple counterparts that look similar. I chose to depict the sugar glider and flying monkey in my depiction but the chapter also discussed marsupial mole-mole, wombat-groundhog, quoll-wildcat, and thylacine-wolf. These animals look identical to one another but one is placenta bearing and one has an external pouch.  This convergent evolution could possibly come from the fact that geologically the pouch bearing animals tend to have shorter gestation periods or that they are not able to provide enough nutrition to the growing marsupial without it being outside of the womb. Since mammals have longer gestation p...

  This is how I would present mutations to Jr.High students. I would do it as a handout and put mine on the smartboard so they could follow along. The harmful mutation would most likely cause the mutation to fade out or cause the species to fade out. The neutral mutation would cause nothing to change. The beneficial mutation would cause the mutation to either slowly takeover the Coopla's or slowly diverge into their own subspecies of a Coopla.