Lesson Summary: Discovering the great tree of life

Lesson summary for... Discovering the great tree of life Author/Source: Peabody Museum of Natural History

Overview:	This short video introduces basic concepts in phylogenetics and provides a model to help understand lineage-splitting. This resource is available from the Peabody Museum of Natural History
Concepts:	This lesson covers the following concepts: Through billions of years of evolution, life forms have continued to diversify in a branching pattern, from single-celled ancestors to the diversity of life on Earth today. Present-day species evolved from earlier species; the relatedness of organisms is the result of common ancestry. Evolutionary trees (e.g., phylogenies or cladograms) are built from multiple lines of evidence.
Grade Level:	9-12
Time:	10 minutes
Teacher Background:	Explore these links for additional information on the topics covered in this lesson: Classification/Phylogenetics
Teaching Tips:	This video provides a brief and intriguing introduction to phylogenetics. It would make a good opener for a unit in which students learn more about evolutionary trees and work with phylogenies.