The biology classes did a lab this week called "Battle of the Beaks" to learn more about Natural Selection. This lab helped the students understand animals that are better adapted to take advantage of available foods will fare better than those who are less adapted, and thus live to pass on their genes to the next generation.
The students had to select a beak type (clothespin, fork, tweezer, or binder clip) and a cup to represent the bird's stomach. They could only place food in their stomach with their beak and had 30 seconds to gather as much food as they could. When their time was up, they recorded their contents and repeated the demonstration for various food types (pennies, macaroni, rubber bands, toothpicks). Next, the students reflected on which food types were harder and why that may be.
On the second round, the students used strategy to pick any of the food types.
This fun lab allowed students to see how different beaks impact the food birds eat and how easy or hard that may be under certain conditions.