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7th grade · Science · Unit 16 of 16

Natural Selection

Variation, survival and populations changing over time.

What your child practices

Practices how variation in traits leads some individuals to survive and reproduce more, how populations change over generations, and how artificial selection works.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 7.15; 7.16; 7.17 · fossils, similar body structures and embryos as evidence of change, and natural selection

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Individuals vary. Those with helpful traits survive and reproduce more.
  2. Over generations, helpful traits become more common: natural selection.
  3. In artificial selection, people choose which plants or animals breed, like dog breeds.

Example: Farmers breed only the cows that give the most milk. What is this? People, not nature, are choosing. Choosing by people is artificial selection. Answer: artificial selection

Natural Selection in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 16 of 16 in 7th grade Science, after Natural Selection.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Over many generations, helpful traits become…

    • invisible
    • more common
    • less common
    • extinct always

  2. Question 2

    Artificial selection is when…

    • weather chooses
    • nature chooses
    • no one chooses
    • people choose which organisms breed

  3. Question 3

    Dog breeds are a result of…

    • artificial selection
    • mutations from food
    • natural selection only
    • erosion

  4. Question 4

    Who first described natural selection, along with Alfred Wallace?

    • Galileo
    • Isaac Newton
    • Charles Darwin
    • Marie Curie

  5. Question 5

    Do individuals evolve during their lifetime?

    • Yes, every day
    • No, populations change over generations
    • Only on weekends
    • Only if they try

  6. Question 6

    Why does finishing antibiotics as prescribed matter?

    • Stopping early can leave resistant bacteria to multiply
    • Bacteria need it to grow
    • It makes bacteria stronger always
    • It has no effect

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