Survival of the Fittest at Hooke House
This week, lots of weird and wonderful animals emerged from Hooke House, as Year 5 unleashed their creativity, designing their very own imaginary animals - complete with clever adaptations - to survive and thrive in their chosen habitat.
Students were asked to design and create an animal, choose its habitat - desert, forest, Amazon, mountainous, subterranean or oceanic - think about its food and shelter, and consider its predators and its prey. The objective was to expand students’ understanding of why different animals have developed certain physical features over the course of evolution, and to think more deeply about natural selection.
Rosie designed a ‘Squaktapus’ which survives in the open ocean on a very specific diet of banana prawns, fish and yellow lipped sea krait snakes! Sheltering in sand, coral and seaweed, it uses the suckers on the end of its extremely long arms to climb up rocks and grab its prey. It also has venom in its teeth.
Amelie designed her Black Beaked Calling Bird with big eyes so that it can see at night and in the water. She also gave it slightly webbed feet so it can swim faster, but can also walk on land. Its brown and green feathers help it to blend into its habitat.
Elsewhere, there were fabulous fish with colourful shell-like tails and eye-like patterns on their fins to scare away ocean predators.
And there were fluffy tailed birds and curious shark, turtle and octopus hybrids.
The students had tremendous fun producing their animals and were intrigued to see what their classmates had conjured up. They enjoyed looking at the detailed diagrams of each animal’s body to see how different components contributed to their survival.
Amy said she loved making her Polar-Seal because she liked being creative and enjoyed using her imagination for her learning. Bethan loved having the freedom to do her own thing and to see the variety of different creatures that her classmates produced.
We feel sure that these animal adaptations would have received Charles Darwin’s tick of approval!