This quarter the Freshman Biology classes have been studying Natural Selection, or as it may be better known as the "Survival of the Fittest". We attempted to recreate this process in a class activity. This laboratory investigation was a simulation of natural selection. One definition of simulation is “the act of representing the functioning of a system or process through the use of a model.” During the investigation, we carried out activities that simulate events in nature that affect the survival of individuals in their environment. The results we obtained were then compared to the process of natural selection. Each student in a group was given a different eating utensil (spoon, fork, knife, chop sticks, and clothes pins) to simulate different beaks of birds. They then had to compete for a rapidly decreasing limited food supply (popcorn kernels) with the ones not getting enough food being removed from the gene pool. As the activity progressed we tracked the efficiency of the different utensils if getting enough food to survive.
