Digital Program | Primate Evolution
Analyse and compare living primates to reveal humans’ closest living and extinct relatives, evolutionary trends and what it means to be classified as Homo Sapiens.
Program description
VCE Biology Unit 4 2022
Each program includes a 30-minute online workshop with a Zoo Teacher and a teaching guide filled with activities for your scope and sequence. While not a tour of the zoo, you will have direct access to your own expert Zoo Teacher and unique zoo content.
Students will uncover human’s closest living and extinct relatives. They will determine the evolutionary trends leading from primates to humans using observational data and fossil analysis, anatomy and DNA. Students will look at biofacts, obtained from the past and present, to identify adaptations and determine the phylogeny of species.
DNA sequence comparisons will be utilised to further investigate species relatedness and draw phylogenetic trees. Students will gather some evidence to support human evolution through behavioural observations and comparing with a range of primates.
Students will learn:
- The anatomical and behavioural characteristics of primates, hominoids and hominins
- The processes that underpin speciation of primates and humans
- Construction and use of phylogenetic trees to identify relatedness of species
- How to collect and analyse behavioural observation data
Want to come face-to-face with our incredible wildlife and extend your students' learning in their environment? Book in an excursion to one of our three amazing zoos.
Program sequence
Connect
Use the activities in the Teaching Guide (below) to inform and prepare students’ before their online workshop.
Connect and Understand
Students will draw on their analysis of anatomical, molecular and behavioural evidence, in combination with understanding of evolutionary processes. They will identify evolutionary trends, describe relatedness of species and build a phylogenetic tree to model human evolution.
Understand
Use activities in the Teaching Guide to deepen students’ learning.
Act
Use the Teaching Guide to enable students to master their knowledge and skills in real-world contexts.
Program resources
Learning outcomes
Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) – Biology
Area of Study 1: How are species related over time?
- Students will use comparative anatomy, behaviour observations and DNA of living and once living primates to explore changes in the genetic make-up of a population, changes in biodiversity over time, determine relatedness between species and human change over time.
Online workshop details
Your online workshop will be hosted on Zoom.
All you need is a computer or device with internet access.
During the exclusive online workshop for your class, you will be able use the camera and microphone functions.
Students can also communicate with a Melbourne Zoo Teacher by typing in the Chat box.
We will send out a link to join the program to the teacher that booked.
Join us ten minutes before your start time. Arriving early will enable us to check any tech issues and start your session on time.
Book now
Call 1300 966 784 to book an online workshop.
Credit card payment at time of booking. Cancellation must be made at least 10 business days prior to your booked workshop. If not, a cancellation fee of $180 will be invoiced.