• Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Environments change: human impact). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
• Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

1. Does this help or harm wildlife: dropping litter? (helps wildlife / harms wildlife) → harms wildlifePrompt: Does it make habitats bigger and cleaner, or smaller and dirtier?
2. A new road is built through a wood. How might this affect the badgers that live there? (Their habitat is split and some may be hit by traffic / They will turn into a new species straight away / They will have more food / It will have no effect) → Their habitat is split and some may be hit by trafficPrompt: Badgers travel to find food.
3. Which action helps wildlife? (dropping litter / recycling plastic / spilling oil into rivers / cutting down rainforest) → recycling plasticPrompt: Think about what happens to habitats.

• Show a food web and ask what would happen if one animal disappeared.
• Share the objective: Living and non-living factors in an ecosystem. Read the success criteria together.

• Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
• Example: Is this a biotic or an abiotic factor: an invasive species?
• Step 1: Biotic factors come from other living things.
• Step 2: So the answer is: biotic (living)
• Answer: biotic (living)
• Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

• Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
• Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

1. Is this a biotic or an abiotic factor: temperature? (abiotic (non-living) / biotic (living)) → abiotic (non-living)Prompt: Does it come from a living organism?
2. Students placed quadrats in a line leading out from under a tree. Light intensity (% of full sunlight) → number of daisies: 90 % → 21 70 % → 16 50 % → 11 30 % → 6 10 % → 1 Which conclusion do the data support? (The data prove that light is the only factor that matters. / Light has no link with the number of daisies. / Daisies grow best in the shade. / More daisies grow where light intensity is higher.) → More daisies grow where light intensity is higher.Prompt: Look at how the number of daisies changes as light changes.

• Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
• Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

• Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

1. Lichens grow less well near busy roads. Which abiotic factor is the likely cause? (air pollution such as nitrogen dioxide / the number of predators / a new disease / competition with trees) → air pollution such as nitrogen dioxidePrompt: Lichens are used as indicators of air quality.
2. Students placed quadrats in a line leading out from under a tree. Light intensity (% of full sunlight) → number of daisies: 90 % → 23 70 % → 18 50 % → 13 30 % → 8 10 % → 3 Which conclusion do the data support? (The tree eats the daisies. / Light has no link with the number of daisies. / More daisies grow where light intensity is higher. / The data prove that light is the only factor that matters.) → More daisies grow where light intensity is higher.Prompt: Look at how the number of daisies changes as light changes.

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/science/grade-6.