o
What is
?
What is
o
?
Evolution is a process involving small changes in living things over
very long periods of time.
What is it and how has it led to a planet which is
filled with a huge variety of living things?
Small changes in living things add up and over time this leads to
some new forms of life emerging whilst others die out.
Consider the key terms below, how would you define them?
Small changes occur
butWhat
the life is
form
stays
essentially the
adaptation?
same.
Let’s explore
evolution
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What is
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o
?
What is
o
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o
…
Phylum
…
Kingdom
Let’s explore
evolution
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What
When
a life is
form
completely
dies out.
extinction?
?
Scientists group each kingdom of life forms along branches, just like
the branches of a tree. Each branch of this ‘Tree of Life’ is called a
phylum, the plural for phylum is phyla. Each phylum has evolved
from a single kingdom over very long periods of time.
The main groups for life forms are called Kingdoms. Can you think
what the four main forms of life are on our planet?
© www.teachitprimary.co.uk 2014
© www.teachitprimary.co.uk 2014
What is
Scientists group life forms by looking at what they have in
common. As they learn more about living things these groupings
can change.
Did you
get them
all?
When a life form
What
is
changes
so much
that
it becomes a
evolution?
new form of life.
Phylum
3
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…
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These
categories keep
splitting into
smaller groups
4
?
When life first began on Earth, around 4 billion years ago, there
were only a few types of living things; simple single-celled creatures
called bacteria. As plants and animals have developed and evolved
new forms of life have appeared so that there are now an
estimated two million different types of living thing on our planet!
But how do we know about the changes that have taken place?
Over time the types of living things on Earth have changed
dramatically. This is because some survived whilst others became
extinct. We know this because we can study living things that have
become fossilised, trapped in amber or preserved in other ways.
© www.teachitprimary.co.uk 2014
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