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Lesson · Grade 7 · Science

Individuals do not evolve, populations do

  • Grade 7
  • Science
  • 1 min 13 s
  • British Columbia
  • BC7-SC-02

One light mouse on dark rock keeps its light fur all its life, so a single individual does not evolve. Meanwhile, owls catch more of the light mice in a population, the survivors pass their fur colour to their young, and over many generations the population shifts from 4 light and 4 dark to 1 light and 7 dark, showing that evolution is a change in a population, not in one animal.

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In one sentence

The question this lesson answers

When living things evolve, does one animal change, or a whole group?

One single mouse, like this one, is called an individual.

Transcript

What the lesson says

When living things evolve, does one animal change, or a whole group?

One single mouse, like this one, is called an individual.

This mouse has light fur, and it cannot change its colour to match the dark rocks.

Its fur colour comes from its parents and stays the same all its life.

So one mouse does not evolve.

A population is a group of mice of the same kind living in one place.

The mice are not all alike, because some are light and some are dark.

Owls spot light mice more easily on dark rocks, so they catch more of them.

The mice that survive have young with fur like their own.

So the next generation has more dark mice than before.

This keeps happening, so many generations later, most of the mice are dark.

The population has changed over many generations, and that change is called evolution.

But no single mouse ever changed its own fur colour.

So individuals do not evolve, but populations do.

Curriculum

Where this fits

British Columbia, Grade 7

Science, Biology: organisms have evolved over timeBC7-SC-02

Previous: What evolution means: populations change over timeNext: What Every Living Thing Needs

The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.

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