This storyline is a sequence of lessons which progress the learner through questions and investigations, each guided by a unique phenomena occurring in nature to help spark student interest and inquiry. In this storyline, students investigate:

• Why is there such a variety of mussels in Iowa? 
• Why do living things look different from each other? 
• Why do living things look the way they do? 

What students figure out: 

• All animals must reproduce as part of their life cycle. 
• Different animals exhibit different behaviors and structures. 
• These strategies increase animals probabilities of successful reproduction. 
• There are different strategies that plants use to disperse their seeds and different plants use different disbursement methods/strategies to increase their chances of successful reproduction.