GCSE Biology - Natural Selection Lesson

A complete 1 hour lesson for GCSE Science/Biology students on the topic of Natural Selection. This lesson is board agnostic and can be used across all exam boards, but was designed specifically under the Edexcel Specification. Included in the download is a complete 23 slide PowerPoint, including activities, as well as a word document with the lesson plan and timings within it. No printouts or handouts needed in the lesson. Tasks include quizzes to check students’ knowledge and some writing tasks for exam practice.

Resource Summary:

Word Document - Structured Lesson Plan including Learning Objectives, Success Criteria, Teaching Activities with Timing, Explanations and a Summary Exercise

PowerPoint Presentation - Clear Explanations of Evolution and Natural Selection going through step by step, quick quizzes and tests to practice knowledge, short answer questions, a link to an interactive on evolution, a creative writing task to get students to clearly communicate evolution, extension opportunities, optional homework assignment or extension for differentiation. Topics included:

• Linking Variation and Evolution to Natural Selection
• Requirements for Evolution by Natural Selection
• Link to an Interactive on Evolution
• Evidence of Evolution in Antibiotic Resistance and Viruses
• Instructions on a task to get students to explain evolution by Natural Selection to the general public

Natural Selection is the mechanism by which organisms’ characteristics change over time. It takes place due to hereditary variation creating differences in reproductive fitness. It is an important concept in teaching Biology, and is found across the AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC/Eduqas and other exam boards. The theory of Evolution by Natural Selection was created by British Scientist and Naturalist Charles Darwin in the 19th Century, and it we have since found many lines of evidence for evolution.