In Science this half term, Badger Class have been learning about evolution and natural selection. They have been looking at the lives of Mary Anning the first female paleontologist, Charles Darwin and Charles Lamarck. To understand fully the concept of natural selection, Year 6 tried out at being birds who had to adapt to their environment over 6 generations!
Each group of ‘birds’ were given a specific type of beak, they either had a beak shaped like a spoon, fork, knife, clothes peg or straw. They had 30 seconds to gather as many seeds (pasta, rice and couscous) as they could and feed their offspring (put it in a cup!). After counting their seeds they then divided the total number by 10 which then gave them the number of offspring. The groups did this 6 times on different surfaces, each turn was a generation.
The birds had to adapt to a decrease in food supplies due to a couple of hawks (Mrs Stemp and Mrs Harrison!) invading the habitats.
The groups realised that depending on the environments (surfaces) and the adaptation of their beaks over generations (using 2 spoons pushed together), some varieties increased whilst others decreased.
