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4.3: Bingo Chip Evolution

  • Page ID
    138519
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    Colorful, translucent circular discs in various shades, overlapping on a vibrant background.
    Bingo chips can be used to simulate a population of simple organisms reproducing and spreading in this evolution activity. Bingo Chips #3 by Scott Ableman at flickr is used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 License.

    Learning Objectives

    • Calculate allele frequencies to document evolutionary change in a population
    • Identify the evolutionary forces
    • Model and describe the founder effect, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, and population bottleneck

    Supplies Needed

    • Bingo chips (or beads). Each set of chips for each group of students should include approximately 200 chips (50 chips of each color).
    • Student worksheet (provide)

    Readings

    • Alveshere, Andrea. 2019. Chapter 4: Forces of Evolution. Explorations

    Introduction

    This activity utilizes bingo chips to represent a population of organisms reproducing over several generations. Over time, the population of Bingo Chips expands to occupy both the mainland and island coastlines, as both regions experience various evolutionary forces. With each generation, student researchers follow the directions on their worksheet to modify their population as a result of these forces, and then record the new allele frequencies.

    Steps

    • Instructors will provide an overview of the Bingo Chip population, including how an organism can be haploid and reproduce via the budding process. Instructors should demonstrate how to calculate allele frequencies for the population of bingo chips.
    • Students divide into small groups and are given a set of bingo chips and the student worksheet(s). At their table, students should map out the location of the island and mainland, where the bingo chips live. Students then place the first eight Bingo Chips (two bingo chips of each of the four colors) at the mainland location to begin the activity.
    • Students will follow the instructions on the student worksheet, changing the Bingo Chip populations as directed.
    • For each generation, students will record the number of alleles present on the tables in their worksheet. If there is sufficient time, students should be encouraged to convert these into allele frequencies. For example if 2 of 8 of the allele on the mainland are pink, the frequency of the pink allele is 2/8 = 0.25.
    • For each generation students will also discuss answers to the questions on the worksheet.

    Conclusion

    After each group has worked through the six generations of activities, each group should identify and share with the rest of the class:

    • The final allele frequencies for both their mainland and island populations.
    • The force(s) they think had the largest effect towards changing the allele frequencies, and what those changes were. Students should refer back to their tables to support their statements.
    • Which event(s)/evolutionary force(s) led to the loss of any alleles in either the mainland or island population. If genetic bottleneck or the founder effect are noted, instructors can help students identify that both are types of genetic drift.

    Students should compare the populations of the various small groups to identify the differences between the groups, despite that all groups experienced similar types of events/evolutionary forces. This can be tied to the random nature of many evolutionary forces.

    Adapting for Online Learning

    If this is an in-person lab, rank how adaptable to online learning it would be(mark in bold): Easy to adapt

    This activity can be completed online. While students could do it individually on their own, it would be best completed in small groups synchronously (e.g. via Zoom) utilizing breakout rooms. The provided Bingo Chips Evolution Slides can be copied and modified for online classes. Individuals or small groups of students can be given edit access to complete the activities in the slides themselves. Each individual or small group of students should be provided a copy of the first couple of slides. They can then copy and paste the slide of the generation they are working on and proceed to the next generation (the next step of the activity). Each generation should have its own slide. This version of the lab is nice, as a record of each generation is preserved on a slide and can be reviewed at the end of the activity. Also, instead of recording allele frequencies in the worksheet, students can record allele frequencies on the slides.

    Tips and Suggestions

    Other materials can be used for this activity such as beads or post-it notes, as long as there are sets with at least 4 different colors. At its peak there are a lot of “bingo chip” organisms, so it will be important that each student set has at least 50 objects of each color.

    References

    1. Alveshere, Andrea. 2019. “Forces of Evolution.” In Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology, edited by Beth Shook, Katie Nelson, Kelsie Aguilera, and Lara Braff. Arlington,
    2. VA: American Anthropological Association. http://explorations.americananthro.org/
    3. Ocobock, Cara. Bingo Chip or Sticky Note Evolution. University of Notre Dame.
    4. Teresa W. Lee, Kathleen E. Grogan and Justine S. Liepkalns. 2017. Making evolution stick: using sticky notes to teach the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Evolution: Education and Outreach 10:11. Open Access; CC BY 4.0 License
    5. Lee et al. 2017. Making evolution stick: using sticky notes to teach the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Evolution: Education and Outreach which is under a CC BY 4.0 License. This Explorations lab is modified from this source.

    This page titled 4.3: Bingo Chip Evolution was last modified on Fri, 03 Jul 2026 04:37:31 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Cara Ocobock via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.