Preview · the opening missionRead this to the class:
Daphne Major is a small, dry island of volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean. In 1977 the rain hardly came: the island got about 24 mm all year. The plants made almost no new seeds. The finches ate the small, soft seeds first, and soon only the big, hard, spiky seeds were left. Two scientists who had measured almost every finch on the island watched what happened next. Your team's job: live through the drought as a flock of finches, then check your result against the real data.
Teams of three, with rotating jobs: Dealer (shuffles and deals the seed cards), Judge (checks which seeds each finch can crack), Recorder (writes and calculates).
Look inside the PDF
Sample pages, stamped “preview”. The download is the clean, full lesson.
In the full lesson PDF
10 printable pages
- Predict (5–10 min)
- Hunt (20 min)
- Reveal (10–15 min)
- Act (10 min)
- Background for the teacher
- Assessment
- Student sheet
- Worksheet: Finch and seed cards
- Worksheet: Label it
- Worksheet: Try it at home
On the student sheet
- My prediction
- Our drought game
- The real data (Daphne Major, medium ground finch)
- Did any bird's beak grow? Explain.
- Radio report
- Exit ticket
- Finch and seed cards
- Label it
- Try it at home
US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white. The student sheet is on its own page, ready to photocopy.
Free with an account (any 3 lessons), or US$19 for all 4 lessons in this unit.
What students show by the end
- Uses the numbers
- Explains the change
- Weighs evidence
From the lesson’s rubric, which scores each one as not yet, getting there or got it.
Questions teachers ask
How long does “What did the Grants find on the Galápagos?” take?
50–60 min. Group size: teams of 3.
How much prep does it need?
15 minutes. Print one set of finch cards and one set of seed cards per team and cut them apart, keeping the two sets separate. Print the student sheet for everyone.
What materials do I need?
None. No materials needed: just the printed sheets.
Which curriculum standards does it cover?
NGSS (US): MS-LS4-4 and MS-LS4-6. It also matches England National Curriculum, Year 6; England National Curriculum, Key Stage 3 and Cambridge Lower Secondary Science (not endorsed by Cambridge).
What’s in the lesson PDF?
A teacher guide that walks you through predict, hunt, reveal, act, background for the teacher and assessment, then a student sheet (“My prediction”; “Our drought game”; “The real data (Daphne Major, medium ground finch)”; “Did any bird's beak grow? Explain.”; “Radio report”; “Exit ticket”; “Finch and seed cards”; “Label it” and “Try it at home”) on its own page, ready to photocopy. It’s US Letter and prints cleanly in black and white.
Can I try it for free?
Yes. A free account includes any 3 full lessons of your choice, and this can be one of them. After that, this unit is US$19 for all 4 lessons, yours to keep, or every lesson is US$199 a year.