Hi all, what is an experiment that models natural selection? One which is not the basic peppered moth example... Thanks!
An experiment that models natural selection:
Have two peaces of paper (different, but similar enough to make it realistic e.g. yellow and green)
Consider the green to be your grass/environment
From here cut up a sheet of the yellow paper and a sheet of green paper into equal sizes and scrunch then up and place into a beaker. (these are your animals/insects)
On your green peace of paper spread the crumpled 'insects'
Using a timer, time 20s and pick up as many peaces of paper as possible and place into the beaker using tweezers
Record your result (how many green picked and how many yellow)
Place back the peaces of paper from the beaker onto the green paper and repeat a further 9 times
Take an average of your 10 results.
You will notice that the yellow is picked up a lot more frequently than the green because it doesn't have the desirable trait of being able to camouflage into the background like the green can. Same thing happens in real life as you know with the peppered moth.
You can talk about limitations how the papers don't move like real animals do, not equal populations of each etc..