Throughout our unit on biodiversity, we keep coming back to the question "Why are there so many different types of animals and where did they come from?" In class today we began a documentary about the two 19th century scientists who began to figure it all out.

The Galapagos Islands off the western coast of Ecuador are truly a natural marvel. The species found there are totally unique and give scientists and opportunity to study how species develop and change over time. Peter and Rosemary Grant have been studying the native finches on the islands for many years. In class today we watched the beginning of a short documentary on the Grants and then we sorted and identified our own finches into our notebooks.

Over the last several days we have looked at how random events, following a set of rules, given enough time will create patterns. And this is the general way in which living things change over time. In class today we tried to answer the question "Why do giraffes have long necks?" Students designed experiments to test their hypotheses and then we compared their expected evidence to actual evidence. What they found is that giraffe necks have a much different function than they expected! Animals adapt to their environment over time and these adaptations are rooted in our last unit, genetics.

In class we played the chaos game and found that random events, over time, will create patterns. You can see a computer simulation of the chaos game in the video to the right.