KS3 Plant adaptations to the environment
How do plants exist in challenging environments? Pupils investigate how plants are adapted to a variety of native habitats.
Level
Key Stage 3
Duration
1 hour
Allocated space
30 pupils per group
Recommended dates
March to September
Pupils investigate how plants are adapted to different environments using the habitat beds at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.
The habitats studied include shingle beach, chalk, downland, fenland, heathland, montane and dryland.
Learning outcomes
We design our sessions to match the learning outcomes in the national curriculum. Our sessions have a cross-curricular approach and are tailored to suit the educational needs of your group.
We aim to give pupils opportunities to work scientifically in areas that are difficult or impossible to create in the school environment.
This session offers pupils the opportunity to:
- Review what plants need to grow well.
- Study a variety of habitats and describe the growing conditions, using appropriate vocabulary.
- Understand how these conditions may pose a challenge to plant growth.
- Identify individual plant adaptations and their purpose.
- Understand that adaptation may lead to evolution.
Curriculum links
This KS3 visit supports and enhances the science and geography curriculum offered in schools.
Science
Working scientifically
- Make and record observations and measurements using a range of methods.
Biology
- The adaptations of leaves for photosynthesis.
- How organisms affect, and are affected by, their environment, including the accumulation of toxic materials.
- The variation between species and between individuals of the same species means some organisms compete more successfully, which can drive natural selection.
- Changes in the environment may leave individuals within a species, and some entire species, less well adapted to compete successfully and reproduce, which in turn may lead to extinction.
Geography
- Extend locational knowledge.
