13 Speciation Activities

As students progress into middle school and high school, science topics become increasingly ambiguous and difficult to explain and/or demonstrate. Evolution, natural selection, and speciation are hallmarks of the biology curriculum, but they are difficult to relay to students. Below you’ll find a host of captivating visual activities, online and digital labs, and interactive lesson plans to help you explain speciation in an easy-to-understand manner. The lessons are fun, engaging, and rigorous. 

1. Lizard Evolution Lab

This online interactive lab is perfect for high school students. Students complete a digital lab that explores how anole lizards evolve. Students are challenged to think critically about how evolution and species can be affected when moved to a different habitat.

Learn More: Bio Interactive

2. The Origin of Species

This is a great video to show students the basic breakdown of speciation. The video specifically explains the origin of anole lizards, the key concepts of speciation, and how microevolution leads to macroevolution. Each section of the video can also be paired with other activities from the website.

Learn More: Bio Interactive

3. Speciation Modes

This lesson can be completed at home or in class. Students explore the two types of speciation: allopatric and sympatric. Students explore several websites during the lesson to explore speciation in finches of the Galapagos Islands, as well as reproductive barriers during speciation.

Learn More: Biology Corner

4. Interactive Speciation

This is an interactive lesson about speciation. Each group is stranded on an island with a unique environment. Students then have to consider their phenotypes and how these phenotypes are affected by natural selection and genetic mutations over 500 generations.

Learn More: WHS

5. Same or Different Species?

This lesson uses organism cards. Students work in pairs to read the organism descriptions and organize the organisms into categories of species. They place each card into “definitely the same species” to “definitely different species” based on the information on each card.

Learn More: Teach Genetics

6. Evolution and Speciation

This lesson is great for high school. Students will better understand random mutation and geographic isolation. Each group of students is on an isolated island and they are given a unique creature. As the creatures mutate, each student adds a feature. Then, the teacher introduces environmental factors that impact the creature’s evolution.

Learn More: Teach Science Of Curiosity

7. Speciation Matching Activity

In this activity, students use notes and a textbook to learn vocabulary related to speciation and extinction. Then, they match each vocabulary term to the appropriate definition. This is a great activity to introduce new concepts or review before a test.

Learn More: Speciation Extinction Worksheet

8. Logic Puzzle

For this lesson, students solve a logic puzzle as they learn about speciation. Students learn about Galapagos mockingbirds and apply knowledge about natural selection to construct an evolutionary diagram.

Learn More: Cal Academy

9. Jelly Bear Evolution Game

This fun game is played with 4-5 students per group. All the resources are provided, but students can also create their own maps to play the game. Students play the game and learn how evolution and speciation affect the bear population as they navigate the challenges of bear island.

Learn More: OCR.org

10. Speciation Review Games

These games provide questions about speciation, natural selection, and evolution in order to review. Students can pick from different games to review the vocabulary words and skills. There are snowball games, racing games, and even checkers. This is a great end-of-unit resource.

Learn More: Review Game Zone

11. Natural Selection Demonstration

This lesson demonstrates the concepts of evolution and natural selection. Students use a bucket and other items based on their “adaptation”. For example, a student might have tongs as their adaptation, while another student has chopsticks. Students move items into the bucket with their adaptation, noting the differences in time and difficulty.

Learn More: ANSP.org

12. Speciation Sequencing Cards

This resource is great for students to use to model the sequence of speciation. They can use the cards to review individually or with groups. Each card includes a description of a step of speciation. Students put the sequence cards in order to review speciation.

Learn More: Twinkl

13. Development of a New Species

This is a two-day lesson that explores how new populations and species are created through evolution and the process of speciation. Students consider the population of lizards on a remote island and how environmental factors influence the future generations of lizards. This lesson includes multiple resources.

Learn More: PDESAS.org