Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so glad to see you here for today's lesson.

We're going to be learning some fascinating facts about pandas today, and I'm going to be here to help you the whole way through.

Let's get to work.

Today's lesson is called researching information about pandas' habitat and diet from our unit called Pandas or Antarctic animals: non-chronological report.

If you're doing this lesson, you're working towards writing reports about pandas.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to write notes about pandas' habitat and diet.

So today, we're going to really focus on gathering information about pandas' habitat and diet in order to use it for writing in the future.

Now your teacher might tell you a way to record these notes or you might use the worksheet attached to this lesson, but either way, we're going to try and keep those notes safe for future lessons.

Let's get to work.

Here are the keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Source, credible, origin, theme, and bullet points.

Well done.

So a source is someone of something that supplies information and something is credible if it can be believed or trusted.

The origin of something is where it starts or comes from.

And a theme of a paragraph is its central idea that the writer wants the audience to engage with deeply.

Bullet points are punctuation mark that lay out key information in a non-fiction text.

And in this lesson, we also use them for making notes.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

Now before we do our research, we're going to do a quick recap of apostrophes for possession 'cause they're going to be very useful in writing our non-chronological reports.

Then we'll research pandas' habitats and we'll finish by researching pandas' diet.

Now in a report about an animal, we'll often need to show possession using an apostrophe for singular possession.

For instance, the basking shark's appearance or the giant panda's habitat.

So we usually show this using apostrophe S after the singular noun.

So you've got the basking shark, a singular noun, followed by apostrophe S, followed by the thing that belongs to it, the appearance, and the same for the giant panda.

So here, we're referring to the species as a whole, the basking shark, the giant panda as a singular noun.

We're not talking about one specific panda or one specific shark.

We're talking about the whole species.

For instance, the basking shark's wide mouth enables it to filter huge volumes of water.

We don't mean one particular basking shark, we mean the basking shark as a species.

And again, the giant panda's distinctive black and white fur, makes it instantly recognizable.

Here, we're saying that the black and white fur belongs to the giant panda as a species.

So we're treating the species as a singular noun, so it's followed by apostrophe S to show the possession.

So which sentences here use an apostrophe for singular possession correctly?

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good effort.

So A is not correct.

There, we've got the apostrophe after the S, which we would only use for singular possession if the singular noun itself ended in S.

But giant panda ends in A, so we would use apostrophe S as we did in this second example.

So the giant panda scientific name is ailuropoda melanoleuca that shows us that the scientific name belongs to the giant panda.

We are treating the giant panda as a singular noun because we're referring to the whole species.

For C, that is correct.

We've got a panda's legs.

So the legs belonging to a panda.

Again, when we say a panda, we mean the panda as a species.

A panda altogether as a species, not just one panda.

So D is not correct because there the apostrophe has been placed after the S.

And because panda is a singular noun ending in A, we place apostrophe S after it to show that singular possession.

Great job if you spotted that.

Now sometimes we want to use an apostrophe for plural possession too.

For instance, the sharks' dorsal fins.

Here, we're saying the dorsal fins belonging to sharks plural.

And because we've got sharks, a plural noun ending in S, we put the apostrophe after the S.

We could do the same for pandas.

Pandas' eye markings.

That means the eye markings belonging to more than one panda to pandas plural.

So because sharks and pandas are plural nouns ending in S, we put the apostrophe after the S.

So we're still saying that these features belong to all the animals in the species, but we're referring to the species now as a plural noun, and that's just our choice as an author.

So we could write pandas' eye markings, help them to identify each other.

Here, we're saying the eye markings belonging to pandas plural.

Because pandas plural ends in S, we put the apostrophe after the S.

And the same here.

Giant pandas' thick legs enable them to forage for a long time.

Giant pandas is our plural noun ending in S, we've placed the apostrophe after the S.

And finally, the pandas' wide molars allow them to crush bamboo stems.

The wide molars belong to pandas plural, pandas plural ends in S, so we putting the apostrophe after the S to show its plural possession.

So in each sentence we have to choose whether we're talking about the animal species as a singular or a plural noun.

Let me show you what I mean.

I could say this pandas' strong jaw muscles allow them to eat for long periods of time.

There, I've used pandas plural, so I put the apostrophe after the S.

But I could say, "The giant pandas' strong jaw muscles allow it to eat for long periods of time.

" Here, I've used it as a singular noun, the giant panda.

So here, the giant panda ends in A and it's a singular noun, so I put apostrophe S after that.

And instead of saying them, I've changed to saying it because I'm referring to it as a species, as a singular noun.

Now I must make sure that the whole sentence works with the apostrophe in that way.

For instance, let's look at this sentence.

The pandas' molars help it to crush bamboo.

Well, that's not correct because they've got pandas plural ending in S followed by the apostrophe.

So I should say the pandas' molars helped them to crush bamboo because that would be plural, but I've said it, which is singular.

That doesn't work.

What about this one?

The pandas' molars help them to crush bamboo.

Yes, that one does work.

Now we've got pandas plural doing the possession and then we've got them to match that to show we've got plural pandas.

But I could do it another way.

I could change it to a singular noun.

The panda's molars help it to crush bamboo, and that works too.

So I have to make sure I've matched up whether I'm talking about a singular or plural as my pandas, and then using it or them appropriately in the rest of the sentence.

They must match.

So which sentence is here using an apostrophe for possession correctly to match up with the rest of the sentence?

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Let's take a look.

In A, we've got pandas plural with the apostrophe after the S and we've got their fur helps of them camouflage.

That one matches up, that works.

For B, we put panda apostrophe S.

That doesn't work.

We should have their pandas apostrophe before the canines that belong to those pleural pandas.

For C, that's correct.

We've got the panda's tail with the apostrophe S showing us we've got singular, the panda.

So that one works.

And D is also correct.

We've got a panda's thick esophagus.

So that is working.

We've got it as well in that sentence.

That makes sense.

So we've got singular, a panda, and the apostrophe S to show its singular possession.

Really well done if you've got those three.

So let's do our first task for the session to practice these apostrophes for possession a bit further.

I'd like you to rewrite the facts about pandas to use an apostrophe for possession, keeping the noun as plural or singular.

For example, I've said pandas have thick fur that helps them stay warm.

So I've got pandas plural and them plural.

So with an apostrophe for possession, it could look like this.

Pandas' apostrophe thick fur helps them to stay warm.

Can you see that I've kept the noun in the plural and I've kept them plural as well?

Instead of changing it to it.

All I've done is use an apostrophe for possession and change the sentence to make it work with the apostrophe.

So here are your panda facts.

See if you can keep the noun as either singular or plural, but rewrite the sentence using an apostrophe for possession to show that possession.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great effort.

So here are the facts rewritten with apostrophes for possession included.

So try to ensure that you've use the right apostrophe for either a plural or a singular noun and the rest of the sentence matches it.

So for A, I've said, "Pandas' apostrophe strong legs enable them to forage for a long time.

" I've got pandas plural.

So the apostrophe after the S.

For B, I've got a panda singular.

A panda's thick esophagus allows it to swallow bamboo safely.

For C, I've got the panda singular.

The panda's excellent climbing skills enable it to find bamboo.

And for D, I've got panda's plural.

The pandas' strong bite allows them to fend off attackers.

So I've got the apostrophe after the S there to show it was pandas plural.

Really well done if you managed to do this.

So we've talked about apostrophes for possession.

Now let's move on to the research part of our lesson and we're gonna start by researching pandas' habitats.

So we need to research pandas' habitats for the next paragraph of our non-chronological report.

And we can use different sources to find credible information about its subject.

Remember, sources of where information comes from and if they're credible, they're trustworthy.

So the origin of a source helps us to work out whether it's credible or not.

So you have to think about some questions when deciding whether a source is credible.

Is the information from a source that you recognize?

Is the source just one person or is a well-known organization?

Does the source look like it's serious or we're just trying to be funny?

And we need to think, how do these things affect whether we think the information is credible?

A good way to check that a piece of information is credible is to use a range of different sources and check, do they all agree.

So if you find a piece of information about pandas during your research and you can't find that anywhere else online or in books, then perhaps that piece of information might not be credible.

But if all the different sources you look at agree, then that makes it much more likely that that piece of information is credible and trustworthy.

So can you rank these sources from least credible, number three, to most credible, number one?

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good effort.

So we could say, this is the least credible, a comment on a video by a user you've not seen before.

This would be next, a video by a well-known content creator who has lots of followers.

And this one will be the most credible, a video by a well-known organization that makes educational materials for children.

Just 'cause something is in the video doesn't mean it's not credible, but we have to think about where that information has come from.

We need to think who has created the information?

What is the source?

And that's going to affect our decisions about whether the information is credible.

Because remember, in a non-chronological report, we need our information to be factual because it's a non-fiction text.

We're not giving our own opinion.

We're just using factual information that we found from reliable, credible sources.

Now lots of online content doesn't have to follow rules about how accurate it is.

So it's a good idea to check a few different sources when you're researching online.

So true or false.

A famous video content creator says a fact about pandas and a comedy video.

Alex says, "We can't use that fact in our report.

" Is this true of false?

Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

I hope you said that it was false.

Now why is that?

Pause the video and decide what's the best justification for why it's false to say they shouldn't use that fact.

That they can't use that fact in their report.

Well done.

It's B.

So that information could be correct, couldn't it?

We have to check if it's credible by looking at some other sources too.

The fact that someone makes comedy videos doesn't mean that everything they say is false.

We have to look at other sources to check.

Is this information reliable?

Is it credible?

If it is, we can use it in our report because we'll be able to trust that we've got a piece of factual information.

Really well done if you got that one.

So it'd be brilliant if you're able to do some independent research of your own about pandas' habitats.

But in addition to your own research, let's do some together to find out about pandas' habitats.

An animal's habitats, I'm sure lots of you know, is the place where it lives in the wild.

So here is a map showing pandas' habitats, where pandas live.

Can you see the country of China there with those green areas inside?

There isn't very much of the country of China covered both those green areas, but that is the area where pandas still live in the wild.

So pandas live only in a few areas in central China.

The reason for that is that they need bamboo forests and this is where we find bamboo forests.

Pandas live in mountainous areas, which can be very cold and snowy in winter.

Now there are only around 1,800 pandas living in the wild, hardly any at all, with a further 650 in captivity around the world.

And that means they're likely to be in zoos.

So we don't have very many pandas left at all in the world.

And you can see they only live in a comparatively small area of China.

So are the following statements about panda habitats true or false?

Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

Great effort.

So A, pandas live in a range of different habitats.

No, that's false, just those bamboo forests.

B, more pandas live in the world and in captivity.

That's true.

Not very many, but it is more.

C says, in the wild, pandas live in only in certain areas of China.

That is true.

And D says, pandas can only survive in very warm climates.

That's false.

They're used to living in climates that can be very cold and snowy in winter.

Well done if you got this.

So let's find out some more about pandas' habitats.

So pandas once lived in lowland areas too, more flat areas of China.

But as bamboo forests have been destroyed, they've been restricted to the mountains.

So it's almost like they've been forced up into the mountains as their habitats have been reduced and reduced and reduced.

Now a really interesting thing about pandas is that they are very solitary.

They don't live in groups.

In fact, they sleep alone in hollow trees or in caves and they don't hibernate in winter like many bears either.

So we've got very solitary animals who spend most of their life alone.

In winter, pandas move lower down the mountains so it's warmer and in the summer they move higher up to be cooler.

But we've said that they are restricted mostly to the mountainous areas because of human destruction of the habitats.

So can you fill in the blanks in the paragraph to check your knowledge of pandas living habits?

Pause the video and see if you can use the words in the right to fill the blanks in the paragraph.

Have a go.

Well done, good effort.

So we could say, pandas live only in mountainous areas of China where there are forests of, well done, bamboo.

They lived in lowland areas too, but the destruction of their habitats has restricted them to the mountains.

Pandas live alone and they do not hibernate in winter.

And finally, in summers, pandas move higher up in order to cool down.

Really well done if you managed to fill those gaps correctly.

Good job.

So let's do our second task for this lesson.

We can use our research now to create bullet point notes to help us with our writing in the future.

So these notes give information about basking sharks habitats, and this is what our notes should look like.

They are not complete sentences.

They're notes to trigger our memory in the future to remind us of these facts.

So I've said, "Coastal waters of North Atlantic Ocean.

" That's where they live.

I've said, "Bask at surface in the sun, but dive to 1,000 meters.

" That's shown me the two things they do to move up and down.

I've said, "Some migrate, others stay.

" I mean, they stay where they do for the whole of the year instead of migrating.

And I've said, "Usually alone but can gather in huge groups.

" So these are just notes to help trigger my memory.

So in the same way, can you write five bullet points about panda's habitats and their living habits.

And remember, we don't need to use full sentences for these notes, just bullet points.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good effort.

So here are some examples of bullet point notes.

You might have written about panda's habitats and their living habits.

We could have said, "Small areas of China, need bamboo forests.

Mountainous areas, snowy and winter.

1,800 in wild, 650 in captivity.

Did live in lowlands, but then the habitats were destroyed and so they get live in the mountains only now.

" Can you see how I've got a really complicated idea, compressed down to a few words there by using those arrows and those notes to help me?

Then I've said, "Live alone, sleep in trees/caves.

" I've said, "Go higher in summer to get cooler and go lower in winter to get warmer.

" Now you could try saying these notes as complete sentences out loud or even are several sentences for each fact, and maybe you can try and join some of the sentences together as well.

So if you'd like to practice saying these out loud so that you can get 'em really locked in your brain.

And remember the fact that each bullet point note represents.

Pause the video now and have a go at that.

So we've researched pandas' habitats.

Let's move on to researching pandas' diet now.

So the next paragraph of our report will deal with the theme of panda's diet, what they eat to obtain, get energy to survive.

So here, we have some pictures of bamboo, and a plant called bamboo makes up 98% of panda's diet.

That means almost all of it.

It's a plant with long stems up to 45 meters in length and bushy leaves.

So that means a bamboo plant can grow several times longer than your classroom.

It might even be longer than your school hall or might even be longer than your playground in some of your schools.

So it also has bushy leaves, which can see in the pictures on the right.

On the left, we see a picture of a bamboo forest with those huge long stems towering up towards the sky.

Bamboo stems are extremely thick and woody.

Pandas eat the leaves stems and roots of the plant, so every part.

For example, pandas have a type of thumb that lets them grip on to bamboo stems so they can eat them.

They also have smooth wide molars at the back of their mouth for crushing bamboo stems, and they have strong, powerful jaw muscles so they can chew through thick stems for a long time.

However, we're going to see that bamboo also poses some difficult problems for pandas.

So are the statements below true or false?

Pause us the video and have a go.

Well done, good effort.

A says, "Bamboo makes up a very small proportion of the panda's diet.

" That is false.

It's 98%.

B says, "Bamboo stems a long and thick.

" That is true.

C says, "Pandas only eat the leaves of the bamboo plant.

" No, that's false.

They eat almost every part.

D says, "Pandas rely heavily on bamboo to survive.

" Well, yes, that's true.

98% of your diet is a huge amount.

So pandas are very reliant on this bamboo.

Good job.

So pandas' are reliance on bamboo, as we just said, explains why they can only live in small areas of bamboo forest.

They need that bamboo forest because it's such a huge part of their diet.

There are some other problems with the bamboo diet too.

Now the funny thing is that pandas struggle to digest bamboo even though it's such a huge part of their diet and that means they can't get much energy from it.

So they have to eat in huge quantities in order to get enough energy to survive.

So to get enough energy to survive, pandas can spend up to 16 hours a day eating up to 38 kilograms of bamboo.

Now remember, a panda weighs roughly 110 kilograms, so that's a third of its body weight.

It has to eat every day in bamboo.

And 16 hours a day of eating only leaves eight hours for anything else they need to do, including sleep.

So bamboo is a hugely important part of pandas' diet, but they struggle to digest it.

So they have to eat huge amounts in order to get enough energy to survive.

Now because they eat so much food that they can't digest, pandas defecate, that means poop, up to 50 times a day.

So those eight hours they have left over when they're not eating must a lot of them be spent defecating as well.

So can you fill in the blanks for the numbers to give the correct statistics for each of these sentences?

Pause the video and have a think.

Good job, well done.

Hopefully, you remember the statistic is a fact relating to numbers.

So let's see if we've got these right.

A says, "Pandas eat up to, well done, 38 kilograms of bamboo a day.

" For B, pandas have to defecate 50 times a day.

C says, "Pandas can spend, well done, 16 hours a day eating bamboo.

" So those are really useful statistics to get locked in your head for writing about pandas later on.

Good job.

Now, although pandas rely heavily on bamboo for their diet as we've seen, they do sometimes eat other things too, such as beans, eggs, and small animals.

Now eggs and small animals obviously animal product.

So that means that pandas are omnivores just like us.

You might think that they would be herbivores because they've got so much bamboo in their diet, but the fact that they eat those other animal products too makes them omnivores.

Now another interesting fact about pandas is that because they don't get very much energy from that bamboo, as we discussed, they actually avoid walking on steep ground to conserve the energy, to keep enough energy, because remember, they have to eat huge amounts of bamboo just to get enough energy to survive.

So can you correct each incorrect statement about pandas diets with the accurate information here?

So look at the statement and see if you can say, what should the correct statement be?

Pause the video and have a go.

Good job.

Well done.

So for A, we've said pandas are herbivores because they only eat bamboo.

Hmm, that's not right.

Pandas are omnivores because they also sometimes eat animals.

B says, "Pandas always have plenty of energy to roam around.

" No, pandas have to conserve their energy because bamboo doesn't give them much.

And C says, "Pandas are perfectly designed for eating bamboo.

" Well, although pandas have some good adaptations for eating bamboo, they struggle to digest it, which causes them as we've seen lots of problems.

So it's an interesting situation where they're very good at the chewing part but not good at the digesting part, which leads them to have to eat so much of it in order to survive.

Really interesting perhaps and well done for getting them right.

Good job.

So let's do a final task for assessment.

Let's write our bullet point notes for our paragraph around the theme of the pandas diet.

So here are the notes I could make about basking sharks diet.

I've said, "It's largely zooplankton.

They're two millimeters in length.

They must consume them in vast numbers.

They do it using their mouth to filter water passively.

They're not sucking the water in and sometimes they also eat very small fish.

" So now can you write five bullet points about panda's diet?

So try to include as well the problems pandas have with bamboo.

Pause the video and have a go at writing those five bullet points.

Well done.

Okay, let's take a look at some examples of notes we could make about pandas diet.

And you might have found out more facts of your own as well.

I could say, "98% of diet equals bamboo, and I've got stems, leaves, and roots and brackets to show that all those parts of the plant.

" I could say, "It's a tall plant, 45 meters, it has thick woody stems.

" They struggle to digest it.

So I've said that equals that leads to them having little energy, obtaining little energy from it.

And that leads to them having to eat lots of it, 38 kilograms of it a day.

They have to conserve energy and they spend 16 hours a day eating that bamboo.

They defecate 50 times a day and they occasionally animals eggs and beans, which means they are omnivores.

Now you might want to try and say these facts as complete sentences or several sentences for each fact out loud to help you remember them.

If you'd like to do that, pause the video now and have a go.

Okay, let's summarize our learning in today's lesson.

We've said that when we research the paragraph about each theme, we have to ensure the information is factual and when we research, we should think about the origin of the information to help us decide if it's credible or not and we should only include credible information in our notes.

When we research, we can use bullet points to record our notes so that we can refer to them later.

And bullet point notes do not need to be in full sentences.

Really well done for your research in today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed finding out all about pandas habitats and diets, and I'd love for you to go and do some independent research of your own to add to your notes as well.

Well done again and I hope to see you again in the future lesson.

Goodbye.