The way that the human body and the bodies of other animals have evolved over the long history of life on Earth is a fascinating topic, and in this workshop we combine the best elements of our Human Body and Fossils workshops for a new experience tailored just for this new Y6 topic of Evolution and Inheritance.
This is taught with many wow moments (as per all our workshops) such as rare fossil handling, looking at fossils close up on the big screen microscope, and a fossil sorting task, where pupils get to practice the skills used by fossil hunters such as Mary Anning.
In addition, and quite unlike any other science workshop you may have had, we enable pupils to make a real connection between the evolution of the human skeleton by not only meeting and learning about our friendly skeleton, 'Stanley', but also taking several detailed joint models in to a PE 'stations' session to study how different bones have developed to suit different purposes.
ACTIVITIES IN THE FULL DAY VERSION OF THIS WORKSHOP:
(This can be for one class, several classes in turn, or choose one activity as part of a multi science day with other classes)
1. EVOLUTION PRESENTATION
Shared from our Human Body workshop and tailored more towards evolution for this workshop, this unique activity combines both classroom science and PE to draw pupils' attention to the way their skeleton has evolved to cope with the demands placed up on it by the forces of nature.
Starting with a detailed look at Stanley, our skeleton, we identify individual bones and look at how they have been adapted for specific purposes, such as the phalanges in the hand which allow fine motor skills, and the femur in the thigh, which provides support and strength.
We then take five joint models outside for a PE session where each joint matches a particular station, during which the pupils are encouraged to use the models to try to identify what is happening to their skeleton as they complete the activities.
In this fun introduction to the day, pupils are given an overiew of the key points of evolution, such as the importance of geological strata and the fossil record contained within it; the profound impact of Charles Darwin's Theories of Evolution and Natural Selection; about the life of the great fossil collector Mary Anning, and much more.
This is brought to life with real, rare and expensive fossils that are only normally available in museums for pupils to either come up and handle or pass round, such as a Woolly Mammoth tooth, a Megaladon (giant Shark) tooth and other delights such as a Giant Elk leg bone and a 1 million year old Whale vertebrae.
But that's not all, because before we finish we get even closer to the fossils with our 400x computer microscope to see one of the most amazing objects, a 10,000 year old insect trapped along with its final breath in a rare piece of Copal, which is a hardened tree sap similar to amber.
3. THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SKELETON
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THIS SCIENCE WORKSHOP
AT A GLANCE
A full day or a single 1 hr session
as part of a multi science day (choose the presentation if just one hour)
For these year groups as per the 2014 National Curriculum:
NC objectives covered:
All of the objectives from the Evolution and inheritance topic, but with more emphasis on Evolution rather than inheritance.
It is now the pupils turn to work in small groups to follow in the footsteps of Mary Anning and other great fossil hunters by classifying real fossils using the same skills used by professional paleontologists.
This is in the form of four different sand boxes which mimic the following key research skills:
1) Counting mass samples (to assess species numbers in a given location)
2) Weighing samples (to assess average weight of a species)
3) Measuring length (to assess physical aspects such as gender and maturity)
4) Species classification (to recognise different species and sub-species)
It is worth noting for schools on a tight budget that this is a Y6 adapted version of the sorting task from the Y3 fossils workshop if you wanted to combine the two year groups for a half day each.
2. 'FOSSIL HUNTERS' FOSSIL SORTING TASK
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