During the lab, we pretended that we were “birds” that eat “beetles”. In the lab, the beetles were represented by the different colored dots. The colors that we used were blue, red, and clear. We started out with 100 dots of each color. We were instructed to gather around the room in a circle, with the dots scattered around in the center on the floor. When the lights were off, we were supposed to wait because it was “night” and we didn’t hunt at “night”. When the lights turned on, it was “morning”, and as the saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm”, or in this case the beetle. :] Everyone in the class tried to get as many beetles as possible in the time limit that was allowed. In the end, 82/100 blue beetles, 84/100 red beetles, and 14/100 clear beetles were captured.
There were different techniques/traits that were used by different people. Some people were really quick and got many beetles, and others were really slow and got very few or none at all. People also used less honorable techniques and stole from other people or they tried to get beetles at night. They figured out which techniques worked well, and which ones did not. The ones that were successful and resulted in a large amount of beetles were used multiple times, and the techniques/traits that proved less successful died out. As a result, the dominant people will reproduce and pass on their