An evolution story (and a bit of cricket too)
10 Jun 2022
Wow - the last half term already. We began our last term by taking part in a cricket tournament. Luckily we've been practising this as our PE all of last term. We were split into four pools and into three teams. I am pleased to say we reached 2nd in two of our pools and 1st in another. We had some tough competition and sadly just missed out on the semi-finals but I was extremely proud of the team spirit shown and the effort everybody put in.
I only have pictures taken of the group that I was placed but here is 'Team A' Grewelthorpe.
It was a beautiful day and really hot, and after all the epic catching, bowling and fielding we did, we had to cool our friction-burnt hands down a little in the passing stream.
On Wednesday we met with a lady who wanted to show us around an exhibition in the village church all about the history of the village within the time Queen Elizabeth II has been our queen. It was fascinating to see how different the village looked and all the purposes the houses once had. Did you know the village had 3 pubs, a hotel, 2 butchers, a shop, a reading room a taylors and many more services? We looked at photos of the houses then/now and some of us even recognised a few grandparents and parents from their childhood days.
We've also begun our topic on evolution and inheritance. First we talked about what evolution means and examples of survival of the fittest before moving on to discussing how we inherit what features and characteristics we have from our parents who in turn inherited it from theirs. We looked at how genetics are passed on through coloured water representing DNA from a parent, mixing the two and looking at how the combination is a mixture of the two, but no two are the same (unless identical twins)
To imbed the idea we played guess who using only genetical features
Then finally, we looked at the evolution of the peppered moth - I had no idea that during the 1800's a the common white peppered moth suffered a sudden decline due to the industrial revolution and the smog it produced. The change in the environment meant that a mutation causing the black colouring thrived as it blended in better and soon became the dominant species. Now, having become a greener society the opposite effect is happening and all within 150 years.
We produced comic-style strips showing the evolutionary sequence
We watched this news link about it too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36424768
Have a great weekend.
Mr Breckon