GED Science: Happy Darwin Day!
D00dzzz! Hey, I’m always lookin’ for new reasons to have a part-ay! And there’s a good one this month… that’s Darwin Day! Whoo-hoo! It’s Darwin’s B-day. And it’s a big one… his 200th. Cool. Science and partying, together at last.
Seriously, Darwin’s a famous old dude. And, you should know about him if you’re gonna have a good science background for the GED. So who is he? Charles Darwin wrote a book called The Origin of Species. What’s it about? Evolution! You can actually totally read the whole book online, dudes: http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/
Now, this book basically says that animals evolve over time… that they change. Totally new species get made! How’s it work?
1) Genetic variation…. Like, there’s short dogs and tall dogs, black dogs and white dogs. There’s blue-eyed people and brown-eyed people. There’s gray moths and brown moths. So there’s lots of different types of dogs and people and moths… and everything else!
2) Natural selection.. When something helps an animal or plant to survive and make babies… well, that is inherited by the babies. So more and more animals or plants have that trait. So, if being a black moth helps you hide from birds, and more light colored moths get eatten, there’ll be more black moths. Eventually, all the moths might be black… Maybe down the road in the next valley, there’s light colored trees, so the light moths survive. Now there’s light moths and black moths in two different places… if they keep getting different from each other… they’ll be two species.
Okay, that’s totally short and sweet, but there’s a lot to know! So, here’s some great evolution resources…
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
And, learn some more ’bout Darwin:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/39754/title/Darwin_Special__Darwin_turns_200
How ’bout a GED evolution question?
On two sides of a river, scientists find two kinds of grasshoppers. The grasshoppers north of the river, where the ground is covered in green moss, are green, and the grasshoppers south of the river, where the ground is bare, are brown. What is the most likely explanation of the two types of grasshoppers?
1) Two different types of grasshoppers were brought to the area down the river.
2) Green grasshopers go north while brown grasshoppers go south.
3) Green grasshoppers are more likely to survive on the green moss, and brown grasshoppers are more likely to survive on the bare ground.
4) Green and brown grasshoppers got separated by the river many years ago.
What’s your answer? Well, if you got what I was sayin’ about natural selection, you gotta answer 3! It’s jus’ like I was sayin’ ’bout moths on different color trees. If a grasshopper is green, maybe it’s harder for a bird to see against green moss, so it survives better. That means more green grasshoppers! Same with brown grasshoppers on bare ground. So, now you know another good topic for the GED. And you got a reason to go party!
For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit the GED Academy at http://www.passGED.com.
