Year 6 have been learning about the work of Charles Darwin as part of their ‘Evolution and Inheritance’ topic. We discovered that he travelled to the Galapagos Islands, where he studied finches. Each of the islands had different seeds available for the finches to eat. Darwin observed that the finches were identical to those on the mainland, with the exception of their beaks which had been adapted to enable them to eat the food available on their island. He noticed that the finches had evolved to ensure their survival on each of the islands, confirming his theory of natural selection, where the organisms that are best adapted to their environment are the most likely to survive.

In our practical work, we used teaspoons, tweezers and pegs to represent the different beak types. We then timed how many ‘seeds’ (elastic bands, macaroni, mini-marshmallows and peas) each of the beaks could pick up in 30 seconds. Finally, we analysed our results and concluded which of the beaks was most effective for eating each type of seed.