Evolution and Inheritance
Curiosity
To ‘hook’ the children into the topic, we had a covered box of fossils and asked different children to select an object. They had to guess what it was and how it linked to our topic. The children were amazed that ancient creatures and plants can be preserved for later generations to analyse how species have changed. We followed this by exploring what acquired/inherited means and so the children reflected on their own inherited traits and acquired skills.
Confidence
The children loved exploring inheritance and they used secondary sources to explore compatible dog breeds and created their own new breed. The children thought about characteristics that would work well and how the offspring might be different to their parents.
To understand adaptation, the children organised animals and plants, watching them to their characteristics and how they have adapted to survive. The children loved exploring how the artic fox survives as well as the rose!
Challenge
To end the topic, we explored Charles Darwin and his theory on ‘survival of the fittest’. We created factfiles about Darwin and mapped the evolution of man. Year 6 analysed how humans have changed.