Year 6 Science · Offspring, adaptation and evolution · Summary
Year 6 Science Offspring, adaptation and evolution: summary and key words
Part of the Year 6 Science offspring, adaptation and evolution chapter. Chapter overview · whole chapter on one page
Chapter summary
| Skill | Method |
|---|---|
| Offspring | Offspring are of the same kind as their parents, but normally vary and are not identical to them. |
| Variation | Variation can be measured with the mean, the range and the mode. |
| Adaptations | Features that suit a living thing to its environment, such as a camel's hump, a polar bear's fur, or a cactus's spines. |
| Natural selection | Helpful variations help survival and reproduction, so they become more common over many generations. |
| Evolution | Change in living things over many generations. Adaptation may lead to evolution. |
Can you…?
- I can say that offspring are of the same kind as their parents, but normally vary
- I can find the range, mode and mean of a set of measurements
- I can name an adaptation of an animal, and say how it helps it survive
- I can name an adaptation of a plant, and say how it helps it survive
- I can describe natural selection in four steps, and explain how a population changes
- I can use data over several generations to describe a change
Key terms
- offspring
- the young of living things
- variation
- differences between living things of the same species
- identical
- exactly the same
- range
- the highest value minus the lowest value in a set of results
- mode
- the value that occurs most often in a set of results
- adaptation
- a feature of a living thing that helps it survive in its environment
- environment
- the place where a living thing lives, and all the conditions around it
- natural selection
- the process in which helpful variations survive and reproduce more, so they become more common
- evolution
- the change in living things over many generations
- generation
- one set of offspring in a line of living things