7Dd/2 Fact or fiction?

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

1       Write the word 'True' or the word 'False' next to each of these sentences.

a        Blackbirds feed their young on milk                                                    

b        All fish live in water                                                 

c        Frogs have moist skin                                             

d        Humans are reptiles                                                

e        Parrots lay eggs                                                      

f        Fish can breathe under water using gills                                               

g        Lizards have dry scales on their skin                                                   

h        Toads lay eggs with hard shells                                         

i         Dogs have hair                                                         

j         Fish have backbones                                              

2       Which is which?

         Draw a line from the correct word to the correct picture:

 

         amphibian                  mammal                    reptile                        bird                            fish

 

 

[ knowledge ]

7Dd/3 Vertebrate search

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

You will need three different coloured pens or pencils. Fill in the colours here.

This colour <                > shows an amphibian.

This colour <                > shows a mammal.

This colour <                > shows a reptile.

 

1       These words are hidden in the grid below: bat, crocodile, elephant, frog, horse, human, lizard, newt, sheep, snake, toad, turtle. The words may be in any direction (even diagonally and backwards). Once you have found a word, draw a line through it using the correct colour.

 

H	P	U	T	T	S	H	E	E	P
I	U	N	G	T	U	R	T	L	E
S	I	M	M	I	L	A	R	I	T
L	I	Z	A	R	D	H	I	D	N
E	G	S	I	N	N	T	O	O	G
S	N	A	K	E	G	R	O	C	O
R	U	P	S	W	O	R	S	O	R
O	E	B	T	T	O	A	D	R	F
H	S	A	I	S	C	A	L	C	L
E	D	T	N	A	H	P	E	L	E

 

2       The letters that do not form part of an animal name make up a sentence. In the space below, write out the hidden sentence and complete it using one word.

 

         ___________________________________________________________________________

 

         ___________________________________________________________________________

 

         ___________________________________________________________________________

 

[ knowledge, literacy ]

7Dd/4 Vertebrate groups

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________

 

__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________

 

__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________	__________________   __________________

 

1       On the lines underneath each drawing write the name of the animal and the name of the vertebrate group it is in. Use the words in the box for the animal names.

 

 

2       On this drawing of a fish, label the features that show it is a fish.

 

3       List two differences between this fish and the fish at the top of the page.

 

 

          i         _________________________________________________________________

 

          ii        __________________________________________________________________

 

[ knowledge ]

7Dd/5 Cold blooded

 

Iguanas can often be seen basking in the Sun on rocky shores. Unlike mammals they cannot produce their own body heat. Instead they have to rely on the heat of the Sun and the heat from the hot rocks to warm themselves up. In the mornings they cannot move very fast because they are cold. Mammals like seals, on the other hand, can produce their own body heat and so can keep themselves at a constant temperature.

 

 

 

At the start of the day, seals can go into the sea and catch fish straight away. The iguanas need to warm up before going into the sea to eat seaweed. However, seals use up food in making body heat and therefore the seals have to eat more.

 

Iguanas are often described as being cold blooded and seals as warm blooded. These terms are widely used and people know what they mean. However, the blood of an iguana often reaches a temperature of 37°C or above - which is hardly cold. Scientists, therefore, describe cold blooded animals as ectotherms - they rely on heat from their surroundings.

 

1       a        To which group of vertebrates do iguanas belong?

b        Why do you think this?

2       Look at the graph carefully.

a        What temperature does a seal keep its body at?

b        What do you think was the outside temperature on the shore overnight?

c        At about what time do you think the iguana crawled onto the rocks?

d        The iguana went into the sea twice during the day. At what times?

e        At the end of the day the iguana's body temperature drops. Why do you think this is?

3       What name do scientists give to animals that cannot make their own body heat?

4       See if you can find out the name that scientists give to animals that make their own body heat. Hint: it's not 'warm-blooded'!

5       Name the five vertebrate groups and say whether each is warm blooded or cold blooded.

 

[ literacy, numeracy, knowledge, research ]

7Dd/6 Name dropping

 

With over 1.5 million different types of living thing on Earth, scientists find it convenient to divide things into groups. The largest of these groups are called kingdoms. All living things belong to one of five different kingdoms: plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and protoctists. The two largest kingdoms are the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom.

 

Each kingdom is split into more groups called phyla (singular = phylum). The animal kingdom is divided into seven phyla. Humans are in the vertebrate phylum. All the animals in the vertebrate phylum have skeletons and a backbone, and are known as vertebrates. The animals in the other six phyla do not have backbones and are called invertebrates.

 

The vertebrate phylum is divided into five classes: amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. The classes are divided into even more groups!

 

The two smallest groups are the genus and the species. Lions belong to the genus Panthera which is a group containing only big cats. The species that lions belong to is called leo. Only lions are in the species leo. Scientists give lions a name in Latin, Panthera leo. This name is the same all over the world, whereas the word 'lion' is different in different languages. The Latin name avoids confusion.

 

This way of naming things, with two Latin words, was originally developed in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). He used Latin because all the scientists of his day wrote in Latin!

 

1       What are the names of the five different kingdoms?

2       A kingdom is divided into more groups. What are these called?

3       What are animals that do not have a backbone called?

4       Write down a which kingdom, b which phylum and c which class humans belong to.

5       Why is classification so useful?

6       Humans are called Homo sapiens by scientists. Which one of these words is the genus name for humans?

7       Who developed this way of naming things?

8       What do you notice about the way that the genus and species names are written in the text above? Hint: there is more than one thing that you should notice!

9       Using a dictionary or science book, try to find out what the words 'Homo' and 'sapiens' mean.

 

[ research, knowledge, literacy ]

7De/1 Looking for invertebrates

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

You are going to look for some invertebrates. Good places to look are in flower beds, under hedges and in piles of dead leaves.

 

 

You must handle invertebrates carefully. You could use a pooter.

 

If you suck on the tube with the covered end, small animals end up in the container.

 

Only suck on the tube with the covered end.

 

Do not try to suck up animals that will not easily fit though the tube.

 

Do not put your hands near your mouth while doing this work. Wash your hands after doing the experiment.

 

Results

Choose a place to look for invertebrates. Try to identify them. Fill in the table below.

 

Name of area you looked for invertebrates:  ____________________________________________

 

Name of invertebrate	What invertebrate group they are in

 

[ observing ]

 

7De/2 Find the invertebrate

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

Look carefully at the pictures below.

 

1       Circle all the animals that are invertebrates.

2       There is one bird in these pictures. Find it and draw in the position of the backbone.

 

                        

 

                  

 

              

 

           

 

3       Count the number of invertebrates and vertebrates and fill in the table below.

 

Type of animal	Number found
Vertebrates
Invertebrates

 

	vertebrates	invertebrates
number
found

 

4       Fill in the numbers from the table on the bar chart. Above the word 'vertebrates' colour in the right number of boxes to show how many you counted. Do the same for the number of invertebrates that you counted.

 

[ numeracy, knowledge ]

 

                        

 

                  

 

              

 

           

7De/3 Classifying invertebrates

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

For Questions 1, 2 and 3, write one of the words from the box on each line provided. Each word may be used more than once or not at all.

 

 

1       Invertebrates are animals that do not have ______________________.

2       Identify these main groups of invertebrates:

 

a        These all have jointed legs. ______________________

 

b        These crawl on a single fleshy pad. ______________________

 

c        These have bodies divided into five parts. ______________________

 

d        These have round worm-like bodies divided into segments. ______________________

 

3       On the line underneath each picture, write down which group of invertebrates the animal is in.

 

                                      

 

              ______________               ______________     ______________       ______________

 

4       On the diagram below, label two features that show that this animal is an arthropod.

 

 

[ literacy, knowledge ]

7De/4 The arthropods

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

Arthropods are split into four groups: crustaceans, insects, arachnids, and centipedes and millipedes. Crustaceans have chalky shells and 10-14 legs (although one pair of legs might be pincers). Insects have six legs and bodies divided into three parts. Arachnids have eight legs and bodies in two parts. Centipedes and millipedes are long and thin and have many legs.

 

1       Look at the pictures below. On the line underneath each one, write the word crustacean, insect, arachnid or centipede/millipede.

 

                         

 

         ______________          ______________          ______________            ______________

 

 

                                     

 

              ______________               ______________     ______________       ______________

 

2       Fill in the bar chart to show the different numbers of each group in the pictures above.

 

Number
found
	crustaceans	insects	arachnids	centipedes/ millipedes

 

3       Where do most crustaceans live?  ________________________________________________

 

4       Look at the pictures below. Write down the differences between a centipede and a millipede.

 

      

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

[ literacy, numeracy, knowledge ]

 

                      

 

                  

 

      

 

7De/5 The story of silk

 

Silk is a widely used material that is used to make fine fabrics for clothes. Silk is produced by the caterpillars of a moth called the silkworm moth.

 

The female moths do not survive very long and die soon after laying their eggs. Each one lays about 400 pale blue eggs. The eggs take about 10 days to hatch. The larvae (silkworm caterpillars) are then fed on leaves from the mulberry tree. After about six weeks, the caterpillars start to produce silk which they use to form a cocoon. Inside its cocoon, the caterpillar changes into a pupa. The body of the caterpillar is broken apart and the adult moth develops. This process is called pupation. After about two weeks the adult moth emerges from its cocoon. This cycle of changes is called metamorphosis.

 

Unfortunately for the moth, if the adult is allowed to break out of its cocoon it damages the silk so much that it is no longer useful for fabric. Therefore, the cocoons are plunged into boiling water to kill the moths. The long strands of silk are then unwound. Each strand can be up to 1 km long.

 

Silk production was started in China in about 2600 bc. According to legend the wife of Emperor Huang-ti was the first person to unravel a cocoon to make silk. Silk production came to Europe in the sixth century ad. It was a very important industry in France in the nineteenth century. In 1865 the whole of the French silk industry was threatened by a disease of the silkworms. The famous French scientist Louis Pasteur discovered that the disease was caused by microscopic organisms - living things too small to see with the human eye. He trained the farmers to use microscopes to identify which silkworms had the disease. The unhealthy silkworms were destroyed and the disease was stopped.

 

Pasteur was the first person to prove that many diseases are caused by microscopic organisms. This discovery led to many human diseases being prevented.

 

 1      What group of arthropods does the silkworm moth belong to?

 2      What is the larva of a silkworm moth called?

 3      What are silkworm larvae fed on?

 4      Where do silk strands come from?

 5      What is the time when the silkworms are turning from larvae into adults called?

 6      Why are the silkworms killed in the production of silk?

 7      Using the information in the passage, draw a diagram showing the life-cycle of the silkworm moth.

 8      What is this cycle of changes called?

 9      What did Louis Pasteur find was causing the disease in the French silkworms?

10     Try to find out more about Louis Pasteur.

 

[ literacy, knowledge, research ]

7D Summary Sheets

 

Variation and classification

 

Variation

A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another to produce offspring that will also be able to reproduce. The differences between organisms are known as variation. There is variation between different species and between members of the same species.

 

There is variation between different species. Lions and tigers are different species. Tigers have stripes, lions do not.	There is variation between members of the same species. All tigers have different patterns of stripes.

 

Sometimes there is a relationship or correlation between two features. A relationship is normally best shown on a line graph. The line will go steadily up or steadily down.

 

Variation can have environmental or inherited causes.

 

           

 

Relationship: people with longer arms have longer middle fingers.

Environmental variation

An organism's surroundings are known as its environment. The conditions in an environment are called environmental factors. Plants are affected by environmental factors like the amount of light, the amount of water, the amount of warmth and the amount of mineral salts in the soil.

 

The cress seedlings on the left have not had enough light.	The plant on the left has not had enough water. It has wilted.

 

Animals are also affected by environmental factors. Humans who get sunburnt or have scars are examples.

 

Inherited variation

This is caused by features being passed from parents to their offspring.

 

In humans, natural eye colour and natural hair colour are both examples of inherited variation.

 

Classification

There are so many species that we need to put them into groups. This is called classification.

 

The first set of groups that organisms are divided into are called kingdoms. The two largest kingdoms are the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. The main difference between these two kingdoms is that plants can make their own food and animals cannot.

 

The animal kingdom is divided into other groups. The vertebrates are animals that have a backbone. There are five sorts of vertebrate. There are another eight groups which are all invertebrates. The most important groups to know about are in bold type.

 

 

The plant kingdom is also divided into groups.

 

                              

 

                          

 

         

7D Target Sheet

 

Name _____________________________   Class ____________

 

Topic		Targets	Before the unit	I have learned this	I have revised this
7Da	1	Know what variation is.
	2	Know where variation occurs.
	3	Know what a relationship between features is.
	4	Know what a species is.
7Db	1	Know some features that are inherited.
	2	Know what an environment is.
	3	Know how environments can cause variation.
	4	Know how to spot an environmental variation.
7Dc	1	Know how to spot differences between organisms.
	2	Know how to spot similarities between organisms.
	3	Know what grouping together similar organisms is called.
	4	Know which features are useful for grouping organisms and which are not.
7Dd	1	Know what a 'vertebrate' is.
	2	Know the names of the five groups of vertebrates.
	3	Know the features of mammals and birds.
	4	Know the features of amphibians, fish and reptiles.
7De	1	Know the meaning of the word 'invertebrate'.
	2	Know the names of the main invertebrate groups.
	3	Know some features of the main invertebrate groups.
	4	Know that arthropods are divided into other groups.

 

7D Word Sheets

 

Word sheets that include new words from the 'Focus on:' pages are available on the Exploring Science website.

 

7Da - Being different

 

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
correlation		Same as a relationship
offspring		Any plant or animal formed by reproduction. Offspring are produced by their parents.
organism		A living thing.
relationship		A link between two things shown on a graph.
species	spee-shees	A group of organisms that can reproduce with each other to produce offspring that will also be able to reproduce.
variation		The differences between things.

 

 

7Db - It's your inheritance/A question of environment

 

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
environment		The surroundings of an organism.
environmental factors		Things in an environment that can change something about an organism.
environmental variation		Differences between organisms caused by environmental factors.
inherited variation		Differences between organisms passed to organisms by their parents in reproduction.

 

 

7Dc - Describing differences

 

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
abdomen		Rear or bottom end of an animal's main body.
antenna		Something sticking out of an animal's head which is used to sense things. The plural is antennae.
classification	clas-if-ik-ay-shun	Sorting things into groups.
head		Front or top end of an animal's body.
segment		Some animals have bodies that are divided into obvious sections called segments.
thorax		Middle part of an animal's main body. In insects the legs are attached to the thorax.

 

 

7Dd - Classified information

 

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
amphibian	am-fib-ee-an	Vertebrate with moist skin, e.g. a frog.
bird		Vertebrate with feathers, e.g. an eagle.
fish		Vertebrate with wet scales, fins and gills, e.g. a salmon.
invertebrate	in-vert-eb-rate	Animal with no backbone.
kingdom		Largest groups that living things are sorted into. The two biggest are the plant and animal kingdoms.
mammal		Vertebrate with hair, which also produces milk, e.g. a human.
reptile		Vertebrate with dry scales, e.g. a snake.
vertebrate	vert-eb-rate	An animal with a backbone.

 

 

7De - No backbone!/The arthropods

 

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
arachnid	ar-ack-nid	Type of arthropod with four pairs of legs, e.g. a spider.
arthropod	arth-row-pod	Invertebrate with jointed legs, e.g. a fly or spider.
centipede	sent-ip-eed	Type of arthropod with long thin body divided into sections. One pair of legs on each body section.
crustacean	crust-ay-shun	Type of arthropod with a chalky shell and 5-7 pairs of legs, e.g. a lobster.
echinoderm	ek-eye-no-derm	Invertebrate with a body in five parts, e.g. a starfish.
exoskeleton	ex-O-skel-e-ton	Thick outer covering found on arthropods.
insect		Type of arthropod with three pairs of legs, e.g. a fly.
millipede	mill-ip-eed	Arthropod with long, thin body divided into sections. Two pairs of legs on each body section.
mollusc	moll-usk	Invertebrate that crawls on a fleshy pad, e.g. a snail.