MOUNTAIN POPULATIONS OFFER CLUES TO HUMAN EVOLUTION

By: Carl Zimmer

Published: The New York Times; www.nytimes.com Alternatively, just google the title and the writer’s name

Level of Difficulty: ** However, this is a tough level * and an easy level **. There are a few questions that are hard. The writing tasks are also challenging

BEFORE YOU READ

·         Do you believe that plants and animals adapt to their environment over time?

·         What examples of such adaptation can you think of?

·         Do simple life forms like viruses and bacteria adapt and change over time?

·         Why do plants and animals try and adapt to their surroundings?

·         Do you think this adaptation will continue in the future?
      WATCH AND CONSIDER
      ·       The evolution of humans: characteristics and evolutionary history

http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-evolution-of-humans-characteristics-evolutionary-history.html

·         Evidence of evolution: Paleontology, Biogeography, Embryology, Comparative Anatomy & Molecular Biology http://study.com/academy/lesson/evidence-for-evolution-paleontology-biogeography-embryology-comparative-anatomy-molecular-biology.html

  QUESTIONS

1.       What is the main reason why evolutionary biologists are so interested in mountains?

2.       What does “This” refer to in the phrase “This is the most extreme example”?

3.       Why can only very little exercise become tiring at high altitude?

4.       The physical responses of the body to less oxygen are (select as many as you think suitable):

·         Completely affective

·         Inadequate

·         Moderately successful

·         Completely ineffective

·         Adequate

5.       What difference has been observed between women who move to high altitudes and women who have always lived there?

6.       What does “these adaptations in the phrase “natural selection produced these adaptations” refer to?

7.       Why did scientists compare Tibetans and the Han?

8.       The overall conclusion we can draw from the studies with the Tibetans, the Chinese and the Ethiopians is that the reason why people living at high altitudes don’t suffer altitude sickness is …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

9.       What does “This pathway” in the last paragraph refer to?

10.   What exactly has nature managed to do?

THE FIRST WRITING TASK

Summarize the text in no more than 50 words. You will find a sample summary under “Sample Essays”.

THE SECOND WRITING TASK

Now write a paragraph discussing what form future evolution and environmental adaptation will take. Justify your opinions. You will find a sample paragraph under “Sample Essays”

MOUNTAIN POPULATINS OFFER CLUES TO HUMAN EVOLUTION KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES

This simple yet interesting text started out as being a level * activity but having discovered what questions and what kind of writing activities it lent itself to, I moved it up a notch. It should lend itself to plenty of discussion and would benefit from a video.

1.       The fact that they have an unmatched power to drive human evolution.

2.       The natural selection that reworked the biology of people who moved to high altitudes. This is one tough question.

3.       Because each breath delivers only 60% of the oxygen that the same breath would at sea level. Because the body can get so little fuel will not do because fuel can mean food as well!

4.       B and C

5.       The latter give birth to normal size babies; the former give birth to low birth rate babies

6.       The facts that in Tibet, people have broader arteries and capillaries and in the Andes, they can dissolve more oxygen into their blood

7.       To search for traces of evolution

8.       Genes

9.       The oxygen sensing pathway

10.   To retool the pathway