Evolution and inheritance

Understand how offspring vary and are not identical to their parents.

Rocket words - characteristic, offspring, environmental, inherit, variation

We spent some time learning about what all the rocket words meant and when we had a good understanding of what that meant we looked at examples of different dogs with their offspring. We identified characteristics that were inherited from their parents and what were environmental.

Learn about animal adaptations

Rocket words - nutrition, climate, adaptation, habitat, feature

We learnt about the word adaptation and what it meant and then looked at a variety of different animals and how they adapted to their habitats as examples. We then conducted some independent research about either a; polar bear, chameleon, sloth, cheetah or zebra. We had to answer four questions; how it survives in its climate, how it finds food, how the animal protects itself from potential threats and how it could adapt to live in a different habitat.

We used the Lego WeDo to create different animals to live in different habitats and programmed them.

Learn about plant adaptations

Rocket words - predator, pollinate, nutrients, epiphytes, toxic

Following on from learning about how animals adapt we talked about plants. We talked about what they needed to survive and how some habitats have more harsh weather conditions which make that more difficult. We used epiphytes and cacti as an example before completing our own research and creating our own plants to live in different habitats.

Explore what we can learn from fossils

Rocket words - Mary Anning, Jurassic Coast, fossil, palaeontologist, ichthyosaurus

Explore the theory of evolution by natural selection

Rocket words - Charles Darwin, natural selection, theory, evolve, extinct

As part of our learning about both fossils and the theory of evolution we studied the influential scientists; Mary Anning and Charles Darwin. It was fascinating to learn about their life and discoveries while researching our biographies.