As the seasons change, so too do the plants and animals we might see around us – but why? Using real museum specimens, we will take your class on a journey through a year’s cycle of blooming flowers, foraging animals, ripening berries and snowfall, to discover why and how the time of year affects the animal world.
Suitable for pupils at Key Stage 1 and 2, the session will encourage children to think about how plants, animals and their habitats interact. The main group activity features a set of specimens for each season, and the students must use their skills of observation and critical thinking to establish which season each set belongs to and why. They must also share their ideas about how these different organisms rely on each other for survival. At the end of the session we will lead them on to our Arctic display in the Nature galleries to compare the winter specimens they studied with animals that survive in some of the coldest conditions on Earth!