Year 6 - Science
Plant adaptations
Evolution and inheritance
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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 describe some adaptations in a range of plants.
Key Notes
- Plants have special features, or adaptations, that help them to survive, live and grow in their habitats.
- Adaptations are passed from one generation of a species to another.
- Many plants have adaptations to help them successfully reproduce.
- Some plants have adaptations that protect them from being eaten.
Vocabulary To Learn
- adaptation: An adaptation is a feature of a plant or animal that helps them to survive in their habitat.
- survive: To survive means to continue to stay alive.
- habitat: The place where a plant or animal lives is called its habitat.
- environment: An environment is the surroundings or conditions that an animal or plant lives in.
- pollinator: A pollinator is an animal which pollinates a flowering plant.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Pupils may think that, while animals need to be well adapted to survive, plants do not and they simply grow where and how they can.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the scientific idea in this lesson using two key points.
Plants have special features, or adaptations, that help them to survive, live and grow in their habitats. Adaptations are passed from one generation of a species to another.
2. Define this scientific word and use it in context. 'adaptation'
An adaptation is a feature of a plant or animal that helps them to survive in their habitat. Include the word in a full scientific explanation, not as a single label.
3. Correct this common scientific misunderstanding.
Mistake: Pupils may think that, while animals need to be well adapted to survive, plants do not and they simply grow where and how they can. Correction: Use the examples in the slide deck to exemplify the various ways plants are adapted to survive in different environments, just like animals are.
More Lessons In This Unit
- Animal adaptations Study Guide
- Charles Darwin and finches Study Guide
- Evolution: evidence Study Guide
- Evolution: presentation Study Guide
- Family trees (non-statutory) 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
- 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.