ISE 5-14 Curriculum Support Materials                                                           Overview advice

Group 21 exemplar Living things and the processes of life  - Our environment (Word)

1. Start this lesson as a discussion with the children. Talk about what they need to grow - food, shelter, warmth etc. Lead on to talk about what seeds might need to grow. Steer the discussion to include light and moisture and note down useful suggestions on the board. Choose three or four ideas to investigate. Each group in the class could investigate a different suggestion.

Set up the investigations using seeds such as cress placed on either a small piece of cotton wool or a small pad of kitchen towel in the bottom of a yogurt pot or plastic cup (try to make sure that all the containers are the same). About ten seeds will be enough and is an easy number to work with. If you are investigating light, make sure that the same amount of water is added to each pot (one bottle capful for example). If the group is investigating moisture, make sure that all the pots get the same amount of light. Remind the children that it is important to only have one thing changing in an investigation - everything else must stay the same.

Other things the children might suggest may include heat (one pot could be put near a radiator, another in a cool cupboard or fridge and a third in a moderate area of the classroom. If putting a pot in the fridge remember to keep the others covered so that they all receive the same light!); soil or no soil; being covered or uncovered etc.

Check the seeds every day for a week. Within three to four days germination should be seen if the conditions are good. After a few more days, seedlings kept in low or no light will become very long and pale compared to those which are getting enough light.

You can find woodlice in damp conditions under stones, behind bins etc. - the children may know where to find them! Catch woodlice using a pooter (see Teaching Note) or leave a margarine tub with some damp leaves in a place where the woodlice live and scoop it up after a few hours - hopefully with several woodlice in it!

A ‘choice chamber’ is a container in which the animals can choose one of two areas to be in either dry or damp for example. Petri dishes are useful because they are small flat dishes with lids which have gaps to allow air in and are transparent so that you can see what is happening. If you don’t have any petri dishes a shallow plastic tray from supermarket foods such as meat can be used with a clear plastic bag over the top with just a few air holes pierced with a pin. Place black paper over half the tray for the light experiment and watch to see which end of the tray the woodlice prefer. For the moisture experiment use kitchen towel if filter papers are not available, and cover half the bottom of the tray with dry paper and the other half with slightly damp (not wet) paper and again watch to see where the woodlice go.

Ask the children which they think the woodlice will prefer before doing the investigation and see if their predictions were correct.

A pooter is a special collecting bottle which has two straws sticking through its lid. One is short and the other long. The short one is for you to suck through and the long one will probably have a piece of tubing attached. Place the tubing over the insect you want to collect and suck through the short pipe. The insect will be sucked into the container and not into your mouth!

A ‘choice chamber’ is a container in which the animals can choose one of two areas to be in either dry or damp for example. Petri dishes are useful because they are small flat dishes with lids which have gaps to allow air in and are transparent so that you can see what is happening. If you don’t have any petri dishes a shallow plastic tray from supermarket foods such as meat can be used with a clear plastic bag over the top with just a few air holes pierced with a pin. Place black paper over half the tray for the light experiment and watch to see which end of the tray the woodlice prefer. For the moisture experiment use kitchen towel if filter papers are not available, and cover half the bottom of the tray with dry paper and the other half with slightly damp (not wet) paper and again watch to see where the woodlice go.

Ask the children which they think the woodlice will prefer before doing the investigation and see if their predictions were correct.

Woodlice usually have a flat body divided into segments. They have 14 legs that are used for walking and 2 that are used for feeding. Woodlice are also called sow-bugs and slaters.

Pill bugs are woodlice which can roll into a ball. Woodlice live in leaf litter in the wild and hide in dark, damp places in houses and buildings. They feed on decaying plant materials or damp paper. They have scales on the underside of their bodies and they breathe through these and so will drown if placed in water.

Note: All living things used in lessons should be put back where they were collected after use. Pupils should be encouraged to view living things as a precious resource to be disturbed as little as possible.