Dogs on the Island

Recently in my STEAM class known as Population, we have been studying the different ways a species might evolve. Evolution can harden and adapt us to an environment or it can cause us to develop terrifying diseases. The four main ways that we studied include: Natural selection, Genetic drift, Mutation and Gene flow. First, natural selection describes that only the organisms that have traits to survive are likely to pass on their genes. Next, genetic drift says past genes can dominate entire populations or groups based on dominant and recessive gene traits but can then be changed with the introduction of new groups of genes. This has bigger effects on small populations then big populations. Mutation is a mostly unpredictable occurrence that usually has no effect on a person but can still greatly change them; good or bad. Lastly gene flow; I stated that genetic drift can change with the introduction of a new gene pool, that refers to gene flow. Gene flow is when one organism joins a new gene pool and that new set of genes changes the population. Continuing with the unit, we talked about how groups can be ordered or separated; these lists are known as Central Tendency which include: Mean, Median, Mode, Maximum in a set, Minimum in a set, the first Quartile in a Box and Whisker plot, the third Quartile in a Box and Whisker plot, the Interquartile-Range, Variance and Standard Deviation of a set. Now to explain the plot line set with this project.

Josh Kyle Hambergerstein was a student with dreams of math and science for his career. When he was left on an island due to a plane crash, he had to survive almost completely alone; the only company he had were nine dogs of his original twenty-five, all of the rest had unfortunately passed in the crash. He decided that he would stay on the island for a while and study his dogs; it was his reason for traveling in the first place. Later when he finally leaves the island, he found that he landed on a protected island and he was thought to be dead.

“The island is a cold small land that is (obviously) surrounded by water,” Josh says when making an entry in his journal. “Given the circumstances the most desired traits would probably include: more fur, able to live in a small area, and can easily acquire new skills such as swimming, hunting birds, social skills and the sense to not eat rubber bands thinking they are treats.” Talking to himself, he predicted which ones would probably survive or not based on their pros and cons.

Kyle had found clay and decided to start making future editions of how his dogs might look. This is the first one he made; It shows that the dogs in the future will probably be mid-sized, with a longer tail and snout.

Clay Dog C.D.H 2019

As researchers were going through Mr. Hambergerstein's notes they came across the original data for the first generation of dogs.