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8th grade · Science · Unit 7 of 11

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.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: MS-LS4-4; MS-LS4-6 · how trait variation affects survival and how populations change over time

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 New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 7 of 11 in 8th grade Science, after Genes & Heredity and before Earth's History.

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: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

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

    Peppered moths got darker when trees were sooty because…

    • moths painted themselves
    • light moths flew away forever
    • soot dyed them
    • dark moths were harder for birds to see

  2. Question 2

    An adaptation is a trait that…

    • an organism chooses
    • helps an organism survive in its environment
    • harms survival
    • appears overnight

  3. Question 3

    Which is NOT needed for natural selection?

    • Inheritance
    • Organisms choosing their traits
    • Competition
    • Variation

  4. Question 4

    Over many generations, helpful traits become…

    • extinct always
    • invisible
    • more common
    • less common

  5. Question 5

    Do individuals evolve during their lifetime?

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

  6. Question 6

    Mutation creates new variation; natural selection…

    • creates mutations on purpose
    • acts on that variation
    • has nothing to do with it
    • prevents all variation

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