Year 6 - Science
Family trees (non-statutory)
Evolution and inheritance
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Study Guides
This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit explores how living things have changed over time, using fossils as evidence of past life. It covers how offspring vary from parents and how adaptation leads to evolution. Emphasis is on planning scientific enquiries, recording data, and evaluating scientific evidence.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to identify similarities and differences in humans within a family tree.
Key Notes
- A family tree is a diagram that shows the relationships between all the people in a family over many generations.
- The top level of a family tree is the earliest generation, followed by their children and so on.
- Similarities and differences can be identified using observation skills.
Vocabulary To Learn
- generation: A generation in a family is all of the people born and living around the same time.
- similarity: A similarity is something that two or more objects have in common.
- appearance: The way someone or something looks is called its appearance.
- physical: Something physical relates to the body.
- ancestor: Your ancestor lived in the past and is directly related to you.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Pupils may think that all members on a family tree are related by blood.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the scientific idea in this lesson using two key points.
A family tree is a diagram that shows the relationships between all the people in a family over many generations. The top level of a family tree is the earliest generation, followed by their children and so on.
2. Define this scientific word and use it in context. 'generation'
A generation in a family is all of the people born and living around the same time. Include the word in a full scientific explanation, not as a single label.
3. Correct this common scientific misunderstanding.
Mistake: Pupils may think that all members on a family tree are related by blood. Correction: Use the examples in the slide deck to illustrate how some members of family trees are related by blood and some have joined the family through partnership.
More Lessons In This Unit
- Animal adaptations Study Guide
- Charles Darwin and finches Study Guide
- Evolution: evidence Study Guide
- Evolution: presentation Study Guide
- How living things have changed over time Study Guide
- Human skulls: using evidence from the past (non-statutory) Study Guide
- Inherited characteristics Study Guide
- More about plant adaptations Study Guide
- Offspring: similar but not identical Study Guide
- Plant adaptations Study Guide
- The survival of the fittest Study Guide
- What fossils can tell us about the past Study Guide
- Where fossils are found (non-statutory) Study Guide
Browse all guides in the Year 6 Science guide library.