Higher:
Suggest some other examples of adaptations from other living things
Middle:
Remember some adaptations from examples covered in this lesson
Lower:
Name some animals that are good at surviving in the desert
Higher:
Explain how adaptations of other animals help them survive in their habitat
Middle:
Explain how adaptations help the animals that we have looked at in this lesson survive
Lower:
Name adaptations that help animals survive
Higher:
Middle:
Lower:
Lesson Starter: Humans can live on every continent on Earth, but other living things cannot. Why is this?
Discuss why animals live in certain places; for example, why polar bears live in the arctic, or snakes live in very hot areas. Why do they survive?
Presentation - Starter Slide
Run through the presentation on how different animals have adapted, explain how and why they have adapted. Ask questions during the presentation to check pupils' knowledge and understanding.
Key Concept:
During this unit, each lesson contains a key concept question housed in the '30 Second Challenge' slide. To help children master this content so the knowledge moves from their short term memory to their long term memory, at the beginning of the follow on lesson the question from the previous lesson is revisited.
The questions covered during this unit include:
1. Explain how adaptations help animals and plants survive.
2. Why is natural selection is important in the cycle of life?
3. Why animals can look different to their parents?
4. Why is the process of genetic modification important for farmers and the food chain?
5. What can we learn about our past by studying fossils?
6. Why is Mary Anning's contribution to studying fossils important?
Presentation
Expert Film: Mike Linley tells us about different animals and how they have adapted to survive in deserts.
Expert Film: Mike Linley tells us about different plants and how they have adapted to survive in deserts.
Ask the children to write down any interesting adaptations that are described and exhibited.
Some plants and animals have made very sophisticated adaptions to adjust to their different climates. Think of one example, and suggest an experiment for measuring how successful that adaption is.
How we deliver the Gatsby Benchmarks:
2 - Learning from career and labour market information: Pop along to Developing Experts career’s zone to find out about jobs in your area.
4 - Linking curriculum learning to careers: This unit showcases careers that relate to evolution and adaptations. Access our 360° virtual work tours.
7 - Encounters with Further and Higher Education: Pop along to Developing Experts career’s zone to find out about training providers in your area.
Presentation - Expert Film
Adaptation Activities
Using the Handout Challenges in the Desert page, label the image using the key words in the boxes to identify the challenges faced by desert-dwelling life forms. Name some life forms that live in the desert and suggest how this would make life difficult for them.
Using the Handout Adaptations page, cut out the 9 adaptations and arrange them in a diamond shape (as on the worksheet) with the most useful adaptations at the top and the least useful adaptation at the bottom. Explain why you have chosen the most useful ones and how they benefit the life forms that have them.
Discuss with your talk partners which adaptations you think are the most useful for surviving in the desert. Either by drawing, painting, using cut-outs from magazines, or using modelling clay, create a new animal that has the best adaptations for surviving in the desert. Label the picture with explanations of the benefits of each adaptation and compare with your talk partner.
Handout
Quiz
With their talk partners, the pupils are to go through the quiz at the end of the presentation and answer the questions.
Quiz embedded in the presentation
Does the word 'desert' simply mean a hot place? Could there be other criteria for a desert?
Have humans adapted to living in hotter climates? What other ways could humans best deal with living in arid places?
Do you think that it would be more difficult to live in an arid desert or a frozen desert?
What might be some of the drawbacks to some of the adaptations of living things in the desert?
What would happen if you changed the conditions of live for one of these animals. For example, what if there were an increased number of predators. What if the desert was cooler?
Are there any other ways that living things could adapt in order to survive in deserts?
Which challenge that comes with living in the desert would make animals need to develop weapons?...Predators.
The Science Behind the Science
To deal with the difficult, dry, often hot conditions in desert environments, animals and plant life has undergone changes over successive generations in order to deal with the challenges of life in desert regions. For example, many different species that live in sandy deserts have adapted their limbs in order to help them walk over the sand without sinking into it, or so there is as little contact between them and the hot sand. Some creatures' limbs have undergone modification so that they are more effective digging tools, such as on the Desert scorpion, which burrows into the ground in order to avoid the Sun's UV rays and the high temperatures at ground level.
Some creatures also have to respond to the challenges in their reproductive processes. For example, the Spadefoot frog burrows 3 metres into the ground, but is highly sensitive to vibrations; when it detects loud thunder and the vibrations of rain on the surface above it will dig to the surface and mate. The tadpoles develop into frogs within 10 days so that they can benefit from the moisture of the rainstorm during their growth and have the best chance of burrowing into the ground, which will be more moist after the rain and more easily penetrated.
Not all deserts are hot. For example, Antarctica is actually a desert because, while there is a lot of water there, it is frozen, inaccessible to most life forms, and it sees very little rain.
Identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution
Identify scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments