Extinction & Rapid Change
Science · Ecosystems & Habitats · conceptual
Explain how environmental change can outpace a species' ability to adapt through natural selection, leading to extinction, using historical and contemporary examples
What mastery looks like
- Explains why extinction occurs when environmental change is faster than the rate of adaptation
- Gives a historical example (e.g. woolly mammoth, dodo) and a contemporary example of threatened extinction
- Distinguishes between background extinction rates and mass extinctions
- Explains how human activity (habitat loss, hunting, climate change) is driving current species loss
Check your understanding
If Extinction & Rapid Change was asked why woolly mammoths no longer exist while other large mammals survived, could they explain what conditions led to the mammoth's extinction — and connect it to what's happening with endangered species today?
Prerequisites
Required first
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