The Birds and the Beans

As a demonstration of co-evolution, the class was split into groups, each group then was assigned a different type of plastic silverware. The spoon, fork, and knife were to represent different kinds of bird beaks. Once we where all birded up, a curtain number of beans were spread on the floor, and as a group of birds we tried to get as many beans as possible. After a 30 second collection period we regrouped and counted how many beans our grope had, and divided them into the different kinds of beans.
This activity showed natural selection by slowing eliminating the knife beaked birds. This was the result because they could not pick up the beans as easy as the spoons and fork beaked birds. Also noticed was the slow decrease in beans that were easy to pick up. The larger beans were decreased in number and the ones that are harder to grab increased in number. This is a great example of co-evolution. As the beaks that could pick up beans easier increased, so did the number of beans that were harder to pick up.
Over the course of the activity different strategies were developed. Some of them were things like using ones thumb as a 'tongue', using the side of one foot to push the beans onto the beak, or using team work to scoop a large number of beans back to ones team members.
I thought this activity was great. I could see it being used in the classroom.