That’s the question I put before grade 6 during History class on Sunday. We’ve just about wrapped up our unit about human origins and the students can converse quite fluently about how evolution works, as well as the more spiritual explanations for our appearance on Earth.
Today’s question is a fun one because it asks students to apply what they know about evolution in an imaginative way. Scientists are a bit torn on this question. Since modern humans so aptly control our environment, why would we need to continue evolving? On the other hand, evolution is so gradual and takes so long that thinking about it in the context of twenty or fifty or even hundred year snapshots is almost pointless. We may be evolving, but how could we possibly know?
So my question today had two parts: a) How could the Earth’s environment drastically change? and b) How might humans evolve as a result?
I was very impressed with the responses that came from the groups. Nearly everyone thought that global warming/climate change was the most likely culprit of a massive environmental shift, with Chelsea predicting a near loss of world’s dry land to rising oceans, while Fiza predicted another ice age. Students imagined a whole range of evolutionary changes to humans, including increased body fat to deal with the cold, webbed-appendages for swimming, and an altered digestive system to handle a changed diet.
[By the way, all this talk of melting oceans reminded me of the very underrated 1995 film “Waterworld“.]
I’ll leave you with this link, where a group of scientists have made their own predictions about what the future might hold for human evolution: Before and After Humans