Biology  by Bradford
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Phylogeny, speciation and origins: grass skirts

24 quick questions on AP Biology topics 7.9 Phylogeny, 7.10 Speciation, 7.11 Variations in Populations and 7.12 Origins of Life on Earth, each answered in a word or two. Print a sheet for each team, a key for the checker and a tick sheet, then tape the sheets to the board and race.

How it runs

  1. SnipA runner cuts one strip off the bottom of their team’s sheet.
  2. Answer as a pairBack at the table, they write the answer on the strip. No books.
  3. Get it checkedThe checker reads it against the key: you, or a student holding it.
  4. Back for the nextA tick earns the next strip. Wrong? Back to the table to try again.

The questions on this sheet

The checker’s key, with every answer, prints with the sheets.
  1. Spot where one lineage splits in two
  2. Split into groups that can't interbreed
  3. Many lineages lost in a short time
  4. Allele variety that buffers a population
  5. Branching diagram scaled to time
  6. Branching diagram with no time scale
  7. A monophyletic group of organisms
  8. Least related taxon, used as reference
  9. Definition based on fertile interbreeding
  10. Divergence after a geographic split
  11. Divergence with no geographic barrier
  12. Breeding at different times or seasons
  13. Different courtship songs or dances
  14. Postzygotic barrier seen in mules
  15. Having more than two chromosome sets
  16. Slow, steady change over long periods
  17. Rapid diversification into many niches
  18. Crop of one strain, open to one blight
  19. Sparked gas mix that made amino acids
  20. First genes doubled as catalysts
  21. Lipid-bound droplet that preceded life
  22. Novel feature that defines a clade
  23. Mutation rate used to date splits
  24. Long stasis broken by rapid change

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