In Science, Year 6 have been learning about how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways. They used the internet to research about how Charles Darwin discovered that although individuals in a species shared similarities, they were not exact copies of each other; there were small differences or variations between them. He also noticed that everything in the natural world was in competition.
The winners were those that had characteristics which made them better adapted for survival. For example, they were stronger, faster, cleverer or more attractive than others in their species. These living things were more likely to reproduce and pass on their useful characteristics to their offspring.
Individuals that were poorly adapted were less likely to survive and their characteristics were not as likely to be inherited. The boys designed a fictitious animal and considered the adaptations that their animal would need to survive in a particular ecosystem. Some boys invented an animal which could survive in multiple biomes!
