Species Sorting Challenge: An End-of-Lecture Review of Speciation Concepts and Reproductive Isolation

<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">As far as how to implement this in the classroom, my suggestion is to lecture or discuss these various species concepts along with classifications of reproductive isolation first. Then following this lecture, I encourage students to put their notes away and then sort them (or allow them sort themselves) into groups of two to three. I distribute the activity and give them 5-7 minutes to complete as many of these questions as possible. </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Following time being up, I go over this sheet with them in real time, asking each group for an answer and explanation of their answer. This can be something that could be a take-home activity as well. I typically use it as a low-stakes in-class review assignment, like I’ve described above.</span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">There are other ways that you could slightly change or approach this particular activity. Rather than giving them set scenarios, you could ask them to come up with their own specific scenarios of these species concepts or reproductive isolation. There are lots of possibilities with this activity! </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">I’ve included the blank activity sheet along with the answer key that has the answers and brief explanations.</span></span></span></p>