phenogram construction

Dan Stephen

Utah Valley University

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This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

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- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
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This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process. This review took place as a part of a faculty professional development workshop where groups of faculty reviewed each others' activities and offered feedback and ideas for improvements. To learn more about the process On the Cutting Edge uses for activity review, see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.

This page first made public: May 21, 2009

Summary

This is a simple exercise where students construct a phenogram using a collection of different fossils or random objects.

Systematics and Phylogenetic Reconstruction | College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

upper-division undergraduate paleo course, required for BS Geology degree

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

fundamental concepts regarding systematics and phylogenetic reconstruction

How the activity is situated in the course

stand-alone exercise, very early in the semester

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

phylogenetics

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

analysis of data, formulation of hypotheses, synthesis of ideas, critical evaluation of competing models, etc.

Other skills goals for this activity

peer teaching, working in groups, etc.

Description of the activity/assignment

Prior to this exercise, I introduce some fundamental concepts regarding systematics and phylogenetic reconstruction. I do it early in the semester because I like to have the students thinking about these things while we are discussing the major fossil groups later in the semester. The exercise is simple: students construct a phenogram using a collection of objects -- could be fossils, or toy animals, or whatever. I use about ten things. At first, students think it'll be easy. They soon realize how difficult it is to identify characters that group some taxa but exclude others. Obviously, the particular taxa you choose can make the exercise more or less difficult. I should also mention that I require the students to produce a dendrogram with strictly dichotomous branching. I explicitly refer to it as a phenogram because I allow students to use whatever characters they wish, and it isn't even necessary that they be able to recognize the organisms. Inevitably, this exercise leads to discussions about the importance of phylogenetically informative characters.