Galapagos Ground Finches

This task, administered as a summative transfer assessment completed at the end of Bend 1 or 2 of the NextGen Storylines unit “Why Don’t Antibiotics Work Like They Used To?”, asks students to consider changes in finch beak length and wing length to make a claim regarding which trait has changed the most over time and provide an account—through both explanation and a prediction—for how food availability may have influenced the change in observed beak length in the population. The task depends on the evaluation of four graphs that show the distribution of beak and wing length in 1973 and 1978.  The task appears to be assessing knowledge the students learned during instruction, and connects closely related phenomena concerning trait changes in birds (Juncos) and how this relates to survival advantages (limited/near transfer). 

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