resource Jane uses for growing plants - fastplants.org

Darwin activities

• age of Galapagos's islands?
• when did iguana's diversify
  
• no amphibians
• article on three types of radioactive decay
  
• solarium 128 decays into moonium 128
• half-life = 500,000 yrs
• our sample: 124 moonium and 4 solarium so divided in half about 5 time - age is 2.5 million years
• can use different numbers, as long as the ratio is the same

When did the species diverge?

• get one of two eggs - inside is a film can with paper on inside, with mitochondrial DNA.
• How many differences do you see?
• 6
• rate of change is 1 change per 1000 bases (pretend there are 1000 bases) per 2 million years
• therefore they diverged 12 million years
• but thats more than OLDEST island! So what could have happened?
• older islands sunk into sea?
• no fossils on south America of these organisms, only found in Galapagos
  
• FOUND a submerged island! this island is 15 million years old!

great resources on evolution

• from UC Berkeley - "Lines of Evidence"
• PBS site Evolution great! for showing missing fossil layer, how does evolution really work? etc.
  
• ENSI
• National Center for Science Education - legal side of evolution in classroom
• Kenneth Miller - expert witness in evo trials
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