ScienceEcosystems & HabitatsAges 12–14
Extinction & Rapid Change
Explain how environmental change can outpace a species' ability to adapt through natural selection, leading to extinction, using historical and contemporary examples
Learning resources
Reviewed external links that reinforce this concept. They do not replace Gakuva’s teaching approach.
No reviewed resources for this concept yet.
The teaching approach above still stands. Curated practice links will appear here as the shelf fills.
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3 before · 1 after
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Before
This concept
Extinction & Rapid ChangeConceptual concept
Check understanding
- 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
“If your child 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?”
Curriculum record
- Type
- Conceptual
- Subject
- Science
- Domain
- Ecosystems & Habitats
- Age range
- Ages 12–14
Standards
ngss-ms:MS-LS4-5uk-nc-2013:KS3.Sci.Bio.Adaptation.2