Charles Darwin

1
Charles Darwin

• Born in England in 1809
• After college, in 1831, he joined the crew of the
  H.M.S. Beagle and took a voyage around the world
• Theory of Evolution
• Evolution is change over time. It is the process
  by which modern organisms have descended from
  ancient organisms

2
What did Darwin do on his voyage?

• Made many observations and collected evidence
  that led him to propose a revolutionary
  hypothesis about the way life changes over time.
• Whenever the ship anchored, he would go ashore
  and collect plant and animal specimens.

3
What did Darwin learn from his trip?

• Patterns of Diversity
• Plants and animals seemed well suited to their
  environments
• Living Organisms and Fossils
• Found fossils that taught him about life in the
  present as well as the past
• The Galapagos Islands
• Found finches (birds) with different types of
  beaks depending on where they lived and what they
  ate.

4
The Journey Home

• Darwin observed that the characteristics of many
  plants and animals varied among the different
  islands of the Galapagos.