Learn about inheritance and variation: why offspring are the same kind as their parents but not identical, by matching babies and mixing puppies.
Year 6 science · 1
Year 6 science · 1
Year 6 science · 1
Year 6 science · 1
What the chapters cover in the national curriculum in England:
Inheritance and Variation is an interactive science game that teaches children aged 9–11 how living things produce offspring of the same kind that vary and are not identical to their parents. It follows the Year 6 Evolution and Inheritance objective in the English national curriculum.
Players reunite lost babies with their parents, watch a tadpole turn into a frog, spot the differences between a rabbit and her grown-up young, and grow sunflowers from one parent plant. They cross a Labrador with a Poodle to make litters of puppies, then design a possible child from a mum's and dad's features.
They meet the key words offspring (the young of a living thing), characteristics (features such as eye colour) and variation (differences between living things of the same kind), and learn why scars and learned skills are not inherited.
Inheritance is when characteristics, such as eye colour or fur type, are passed on from parents to their offspring. Because offspring inherit features from both parents, they look similar to them but are not exact copies.
Offspring get a mix of characteristics from both parents, so each one is a new combination rather than a copy of either parent. That is also why brothers and sisters from the same parents usually look different from each other.
No, scars, dyed hair and learned skills cannot be inherited. They happen during a living thing's life, so they are not passed on to offspring. Inherited characteristics, such as natural hair colour or a leopard's spots, come from the parents.
This game is designed for children aged 9 to 11. It matches the Year 6 Evolution and Inheritance unit of the English national curriculum, so it suits Key Stage 2 pupils learning about offspring and variation at school or at home.
The game has four short chapters, an optional life-cycle refresher and a 10-question challenge, and takes about 35 minutes to play through. Every line is read aloud, and children drag, tap and sort to discover the ideas for themselves.
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