Charles Darwin was curious how organisms came to be. The 5 weeks he spent on the Galápagos Islands and the different organisms he saw there, eventually inspired his Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection. In this activity you will work together with your group to map a voyage from Plymouth to the Galápagos Islands. There will be 5 stops on the tour that roughly follow the beginning of Darwin’s voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle.

For each stop on the tour you will provide an entry in your notebook that will summarize information from different articles and videos provided. You are welcome to add additional information to the stops on your tour using outside sources. 

Everyone in the class will start by individually reading the article, “Young Naturalist” by Dr. Niles Eldredge which goes along with the starting point of the tour at Plymouth, England. The main focus of your tour will be the Galápagos Islands. Although the islands in your tour are not the specific islands that Darwin visited on his voyage, they are each inhabited by extraordinary creatures that were observed by Darwin in the Galápagos and described as uniquely suited to their environments. After learning about their unique characteristics we will work as a class to develop our own hypothesis for how these organisms developed the traits they have.

To go along with your tour, your group will write a hypothesis to explain why and how organisms are suited for their specific environments. This hypothesis should be supported by evidence from this project, material covered in the genetics unit, or any outside sources.

“Organisms have the specific traits that they do because

explain how  specific traits come to be in organisms.

To split up the work among your group, I would suggest that 1 student is made responsible for one of each of the Galápagos Islands. If you have a group of 4, one student should be responsible for Punta Alta. With a group of 3 these additional tasks should be split up evenly.

As with other activities in our class, use the resources available to help with reading. 

 can help to simplify text and get definitions for difficult vocabulary. Use your 

 to actively break down the reading and get started on writing. When you feel confused about what you are reading, ask questions out loud. Talk to someone in your group or to the teacher. If you are at home, write your questions down so that we can discuss them during class.

Galápagos Voyage