Co-evolution

In class we performed an activity involving different types of beans, split peas and birds (which were us, the students in the class). In the beginning of the activity we were separated into three different groups based on whether we received a knife, spoon or a fork. The knife, spoon and fork represented the beak of the bird that we were. a certain amount of each type of bean and pea was counted out and placed into a cup and all birds gathered in the front of the room. When the cup of food was dumped on the floor all of the birds using only their beaks had to pick up as much food as they could and place it in their hand which represented their stomach. When the time was up each group (either spoon, knife, or fork) was to add up the amount of each type of food that they got as a group. According to the results the amount of each type of bean and pea would either increase or decrease and this would also affect the amount of each type of beaked bird and how many of their kind survived. The type of bird that got the most food was able to reproduce and there would be an increasing number of them and the other types decreased in number. Natural selection is the process whereby an organism is better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. As stated above this activity demonstrates natural selection because the more food one group of birds was able to collect the more offspring they were able to collect and the less the group was able to collect the more of them died off. In the activity as the group of spoons grew large the forks were slowly decreasing but safe although they were largely outnumbered by the spoons and the knives got down to just one member. Co-evelution is the evolution of two species in which the evolution  of one affects the evolution of another. This activity demonstrates co-evolution because as one group obtains more food and grows in number another group will struggle to gain more food causing them to decrease in population. I was in the group of forks. My group worked together to maximize our ability to eat beans by using one beak to scoop it into the others beak for faster eating.
I think that this activity was really beneficial and helpful to have a better understanding of the concepts of co-evolution and natural selection. This is something that I feel could be done with many different age groups of children but also appropriate to do in the college setting.
Coevolution Activity F 2015.xlsx