What’s happening in Year 6 – Week 2

In science this half term, Year 6 are learning all about evolution and inheritance. In this week’s science lesson they explored the key question: ‘Why do I look similar, but not identical to my family?’ The children began by defining key terms like offspring and inheritance, and then went on to learn about the formation of DNA, which is a unique code that makes up each of us. The children sorted and classified some characteristics by deciding whether they were inherited (meaning that we gained them from our parents) or environmental (meaning that our surroundings have impacted them). Year 6 were interested to discover that some characteristics sat between both categories, for example, hair colour: humans have a natural hair colour, however cosmetics products mean that it is possible to change this.

In pairs, the children used their new scientific knowledge to sort and classify different breeds of dogs. They gave careful consideration to the features that were similar and different and used these to help them make decisions about which breeds may have inherited characteristics from one another. Take a look at what they got up to…