An adaptation is a feature of a plant or animal that helps them to survive in their habitat.

To survive means to continue to stay alive.

The place where a plant or animal lives is called its habitat.

An environment is the surroundings or conditions that an animal or plant lives in.

A pollinator is an animal which pollinates a flowering plant.

Plant adaptations

Science

Where fossils are found (non-statutory)

What fossils can tell us about the past

How living things have changed over time

Human skulls: using evidence from the past (non-statutory)

Offspring: similar but not identical

Family trees (non-statutory)

Inherited characteristics

Animal adaptations

Charles Darwin and finches

More about plant adaptations

The survival of the fittest

Evolution: evidence

Evolution: presentation

In this Evolution and inheritance unit, pupils learn that, normally, offspring vary and are not identical to parents. In the Heredity and DNA unit, they will build on this knowledge to learn about how genes and chromosomes work. 

In the New life unit, pupils learnt that animals, including humans have offspring which grow into adults. In this Evolution and Inheritance unit, pupils will build on this knowledge to recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to parents

This unit explores how living things have changed over time, using fossils as evidence of past life. It covers how offspring vary from parents and how adaptation leads to evolution. Emphasis is on planning scientific enquiries, recording data, and evaluating scientific evidence.

Evolution and inheritance

What is the name for the special features that plants have that help them to survive and grow in their habitats?

passed from one generation of a species to another.

transported from plant to plant by pollinators.

only for plants living in extreme environments.

Which of these adaptations would help to prevent a plant form being eaten?

Which of these adaptations would help a plant to be pollinated?

Match the plant adaptation to the habitat it is suited for.

Which of these plants has adaptations that would suit a rainforest floor habitat, where there is plenty of water but little sunlight?

What is the function of leaves on a plant?

What is the function of flowers on a plant?

the way gardeners can collect seeds from plants

the way seeds are moved away from the parent plant

special characteristics animals have to help them survive

the range of food sources animals can eat

They choose to adapt during their lifetime.

They are passed from one generation of a species to another.

An insect or other pollinating animal lands on a flower to drink nectar.

Pollen from the flower’s anthers is rubbed onto the animal.

The animal, covered in pollen, moves to another flower.

The pollen rubs off the animal onto the stigma of another flower.

Pollen from the stigma moves down to the ovary where fertilisation takes place.

Order the stages of pollination in flowering plants.

Plant adaptations

Lesson outcome