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| | Talking Points for Science |
The Talking Points in this section are designed to elicit a range of ideas about the natural world. Children’s everyday observations of how the world works lead them to generate their own informal explanations about things. They may never articulate these ideas but hold them to be ‘true’ because they seem to account for what is observed. Some such everyday ideas are tenuous and easily changed; others are much more deeply rooted. It is not unusual for any of us to hold on to our own explanations for things even though we can understand a more scientific conception of the world.
Responses to these Talking Points can include:
we agree with this, because …
we disagree with this, because …
we are unsure but think that …
we have different points of view about this, which are …
Each set of Talking Points concludes with a Thinking Together activity in which children share their ideas to draw, write, create or record some aspect of the theme.
You may wish to provide the whole list of Talking Points, to put up two or three for more focused discussion, or to allocate different points to different groups. They can be used to start a lesson, as part of group work within a lesson, or as part of a plenary or revision session. After group discussion, it is important to orchestrate a whole-class discussion in which a range of views are shared and considered.
These science Talking Points are accompanied by information in the form of teacher’s notes, contributed by Paul Warwick of the faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. These are for use in planning and teaching or with groups after their discussion. Children should not be provided with copies of the notes during their group talk, as reading and looking for ‘right answers’ hampers effective discussion.
Talking Points: Small Creatures
Talking Points
What does your group think of these ideas?
- All creepy crawlies are insects.
- Insects all eat plants.
- Spiders and insects are the same thing.
- Woodlice have live babies; they do not lay eggs.
- The woodlouse has a hard outside shell.
- The woodlouse has more legs than a spider.
- Woodlice move at different speeds.
- Woodlice have more in common with lobsters than with spiders.
- Snails are both male and female.
- Slugs are snails that are in between one shell and the next size up.
- There is more than one sort of worm.
- Ladybirds lay eggs and tiny ladybirds hatch out in summer.
- Insects have six legs, so a caterpillar is not an insect.
- Butterflies have scales on their wings.
- Moths find their way by using light and scent.
- Beetles all have hard wing cases.
- Dragonflies are carnivores.
- Composting is helped by worms.
- In Victorian times, there were 100 times more butterflies than now.
- Some insects use camouflage to protect themselves.
Thinking Together
Talk with your group to design and draw a plant that can catch insects. Say why it would get its food this way.
Information: Small Creatures
Many small creatures are invertebrates. The term ‘invertebrate’ refers to about 30 groups of animals, all of which have no backbone or internal skeleton. 90 per cent of all creatures on the planet are invertebrates and there are over 250,000 different kinds of invertebrates in Britain. Many have soft bodies; some have a thin, strong exoskeleton – such as beetles.
Butterflies, moths and beetles are all insects, the most diverse of all animal groups. They have six legs and three body parts – head, thorax and abdomen. Some insects are herbivores and eat plants while others, such as dragonflies, are carnivores. Ladybirds are a type of beetle – an insect with a hard exoskeleton and hard wing cases. They lay eggs, which hatch into larvae that eat greenfly voraciously. Butterflies and moths can be distinguished by their antennae; those of the moth are pointed (male) or like fronds (female), while butterfly antennae are clubbed. Both butterflies and moths have good eyesight and the ability to follow scent. They are suffering because of habitat loss; in Victorian times, there were at least 100 times more butterflies than there are now.
Caterpillars are the immature stage of certain kinds of insects (most notably butterflies and moths) and undergo metamorphosis to become the adult stage. A caterpillar has a head, three pairs of true legs on the thoracic segments and a segmented abdomen.
Spiders are arachnids and have a tough external covering and jointed legs. Spiders have two body parts and eight legs, each with eight joints. The weight of insects eaten by spiders each year exceeds the weight of the human population of the world. Woodlice are crustaceans (related to lobsters and crabs). Females keep their eggs underneath their bodies until they hatch, then seem to ‘give birth’ to live young. The woodlouse has a hard outside carapace. As a woodlouse grows the ‘shell’ falls off and it grows a new, bigger, one. Woodlice have fourteen legs and their speed of movement depends on the situation in which they find themselves (rather like us!).
Snails and slugs are gastropod molluscs – gastro is for stomach and pod is for foot, so they are ‘belly-footed’ animals. Though descended from snails, slugs are a different species, rather than simply snails without shells. There are many types of worm. Worms sift earth and organic material, improving soil drainage and texture – they convert compost to soil. Earthworms have segmented bodies and they are able to replace damaged tail-end segments, while other types of worm are un-segmented. Charles Darwin spent 39 years studying the humble earthworm, so they are worthy of our attention.
Talking Points: Micro-Organisms
Talking Points
True, false, or unsure? Talk together to decide on your group’s answer to these ideas, making your reasons clear.
- Micro-organisms are the same thing as germs.
- There are germs all around us.
- We always get ill when we catch a germ.
- We can explain exactly what a virus is (practise trying!).
- A bacteria and a virus are the same thing.
- You can only catch germs through the air.
- There is nothing you can do to stop germs spreading.
- We don’t have any germs!
- An...
