Science / Year 6 / Living Things / 1.8
Estimated time: 40 minutes | Difficulty: Medium | Ref: KS2-LT-5
Learning objective: Recognise that changes in environments can affect organisms positively or negatively.
Use the pathway to build a clear mental model. Open each node and answer the check question.
Environments change naturally (seasons, weather, natural disasters) and because of human activity (building, farming, pollution). These changes can be quick or slow, temporary or permanent.
Check: Name one natural and one human-caused environmental change.
Some changes help organisms thrive. Warmer temperatures can extend growing seasons for plants. New habitats created by humans (like gardens or nature reserves) can provide homes for wildlife.
Check: How might a milder winter be good for some organisms?
Many changes harm organisms. Habitat destruction removes homes. Pollution contaminates food and water. Climate change disrupts life cycles. Species may decline or become extinct.
Check: Why might cutting down a forest harm organisms that live there?
Organisms can: adapt over generations, migrate to new areas, change behaviour, or decline in numbers. Some species benefit while others suffer from the same change - there are winners and losers.
Check: What options does an animal have if its habitat becomes too warm?
Environments change due to both natural processes and human activities:
Some environmental changes can benefit organisms:
Many environmental changes harm organisms:
Hedgehog numbers have fallen dramatically in Britain. Causes include: loss of hedgerows (removing food and shelter), roads (many are killed by cars), and garden fences (they cannot travel to find food and mates). Positive change: people are now making "hedgehog highways" - small holes in fences - and leaving wild areas in gardens, which helps hedgehog numbers recover.
British puffins feed their chicks on sand eels. As seas warm due to climate change, sand eels move to cooler waters further north. Puffins now struggle to find enough food for their chicks, so fewer chicks survive. This is a negative effect of environmental change - the timing of food availability no longer matches when puffins need it.
Grey squirrels were introduced to Britain from North America in the 1870s. They outcompete native red squirrels for food and carry a disease that kills reds but doesn't harm greys. Red squirrel populations have crashed - they now only survive in a few areas like Scotland and the Isle of Wight. This shows how introducing a non-native species can harm native wildlife.
Beavers were extinct in Britain for 400 years but have been reintroduced. They build dams that create wetland habitats for many other species including fish, insects, and birds. Their dams also slow flooding downstream - a positive environmental change. This shows that changes can be deliberately made to benefit wildlife.
Answer all questions, then check your answers. Your quiz result is saved on this device.
Wrong thinking: "All changes to the environment harm animals." Correct: Some changes are positive. Creating nature reserves, wildlife gardens, and reducing pollution all help organisms. Even some natural changes like fires can benefit certain species by creating new habitats.
Wrong thinking: "One cold winter proves there's no climate change." Correct: Weather is day-to-day conditions; climate is the long-term pattern over decades. Climate change refers to shifts in average conditions over many years, not individual weather events.
Wrong thinking: "Animals will just adapt to changes." Correct: Biological adaptations take many generations to develop. If changes happen too quickly, species cannot adapt fast enough and may become extinct. They can change behaviour or move, but cannot grow new body features in their lifetime.
Wrong thinking: "Losing one species doesn't really matter." Correct: Species are connected through food webs. If one species declines, it affects all the organisms that eat it and those that it eats. A change affecting one organism can ripple through an entire ecosystem.