Discover important principles of evolution on "Darwin Island" and "Wallace Island." On these two hypothetical islands, students manipulate various parameters of a bird species, such as variability, heritability, and beak size, and various parameters of the environment such as precipitation and island size. Once these variables are established, the program vividly shows how these changes influence the differences in the evolution of beak size and population numbers for the two groups of finches over 100, 200, or 300 years. Evolutionary changes over long time periods are quickly and easily modeled.

The purpose of this laboratory is to:

• Develop an understanding of important factors that affect evolution of a species.

• Demonstrate important biological and environmental selection factors that influence evolution by natural selection.

• Simulate how changes in beak size and other characteristics of finch populations influence evolution of beak size and population numbers.