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Interdependence and Adaptation

We will use the habitats found at Skelton Grange to discover how animals and plants depend on each other and are adapted to live successfully in the places they do.

National Curriculum Summary

Sc2

Sc2 Life Processes and Living Things
Variation and Classification - We make and use keys and find out how locally occurring animals can be identified and assigned to groups. We learn that the variety of plants and animals makes it important to identify and group them.
Living things in their environment - We learn how living things and the environment need protection, and how animals and plants in two different habitats are suited to their environment. We also look at food chains to show feeding relationships, learn how nearly all food chains start with a green plant and explore how all living things in a local habitat need each other.

National Curriculum Main Links

Sc2 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 5e
Covers much of QCA Unit 6a - Interdependence and Adaptation

Availability

March to October

Day Summary

The day begins with an introduction by the day leader, welcoming the group to the centre, followed by a whole-class game or activity.

The children then split into groups (usually 3) for the remaining activities: Interdependence, Adaptation and Keys.

Interdependence

This section looks at how everything in nature is connected and how plants and animals need each other for many different things. Focusing on a local habitat, we go pond dipping and have a close look at the animals and plants that we find in there, exploring how they interact to create a habitat. We look at feeding relationships, and how these are represented by food chains and webs, and introduce the scientific terminology.

Adaptation

We consider adaptation as "a solution to a problem" and look at how animals and plants living in different places are adapted to where they live. We focus on creatures that we find in our pond to look specifically at how creatures are physically adapted to breathing in a pond and then experience a behavioural adaptation by playing the migration game, when the group become swallows and migrate to Africa.

Keys

We investigate the woodland habitat by going on a minibeast hunt and use simple keys to identify what we find.  The children then make a simple branched key to help identify some of the creatures we have found.
:: last modified 13 Aug 2008 ::