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
Teaching approaches
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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?
Explain how environmental change can outpace a species' ability to adapt through natural selection, leading to extinction, using historical and contemporary examples
Learning resources
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3 before · 1 after
Before
This 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