What Darwin Never Saw
Dear Parent/Guardian,
Your child is about to embark upon a very special and exciting journey!
In the weeks ahead, the focus of study for our class will be the Galapagos Islands, located about 600 miles off the coast of South America. The students will watch the New Explorers Peter and Rosemary Grant as they track changes in Darwin's finches on one of the small islands. Activities in and out of the classroom will help us explore the idea of natural selection and the important relationship between natural conditions and an animal's ability to adapt.
We will be making three-dimensional contour maps of the Galapagos Islands to see the geology of the area. We will also be making observations on a species of salamander in our classroom to see how it changes in wet and dry environments. We expect to have rich discussions of the biological adaptations of plants and animals as we learn about the process of natural selection. Finally, we will visit sites on the World Wide Web to find out more about all of the topics we study.
We ask that you join our class by being a part of your student's educational experience. Help us gather pictures for our journals, donate materials for our investigations, and read some of the many books about birds with us. If you have traveled to the Galapagos Islands or have studied some of our related topics, volunteer to come in and share your experiences with us.
Please take some time to discuss our lessons with your child. You can enhance your child's learning by visiting the library to find out more about Darwin's finches. For even more fun, plan a meal at home with a finch theme! And with your child, watch for information about natural selection in the news. You may be surprised by how much is out there!
We hope you will remain informed of what is going on in the classroom, and as excited about this exploration as we are!