Review: growing, traits and surviving
In Term 2 we learned how living things grow and survive. A timeline puts changes in order, from the earliest to the latest. Parents make offspring. Offspring look like their parents, but they are not exactly the same, because each one gets its own mixture of features. Features that come from parents, such as a zebra’s stripes, are inherited traits. A scar on a cat’s ear or a dog that was taught to sit is not inherited. An adaptation helps a living thing live in its habitat. An acacia tree has deep roots to find water. A water lily has a bendy stem so that its leaf floats in the light. Seals have blubber, a layer of fat that keeps them warm in cold water. A camel’s hump stores fat, not water. Camouflage helps animals hide. Birds have beaks of different shapes for different foods: a spoon-shaped beak scoops, a long thin beak probes, a short strong beak cracks seeds, and a hooked beak tears meat. In a fair test we change only one thing and keep everything else the same. A birdsong can be described by its pitch (high or low) and its tempo (fast or slow). Engineers use the steps ask, imagine, plan, build, test and improve.
| Beak | Good for |
|---|---|
| spoon-shaped | scooping small animals and plants from water |
| long and thin | picking up tiny insects |
| short and strong | cracking hard seeds |
| hooked and sharp | tearing meat |
Survival cards. Choose three animals, such as a camel, a polar bear and a zebra. For each animal, write one inherited trait, one adaptation that helps it, and one thing that is not inherited (something that can happen during its life). Draw one of them in its habitat. Then quiz a friend: say a feature and ask, “Inherited or not? Adaptation or not?” Explain every answer.