Year 4 investigate woodlice habitats

This week, the children have enjoyed investigating which kind of habitat woodlice prefer. First, the children came up with their own hypotheses, such as “Woodlice prefer dark and damp environments.” Encouraging the children to explain their reasoning led to detailed and thoughtful predictions, where the children were able to apply prior knowledge. Groups were then asked to design and plan their own investigation, where they would be able to test their hypothesis, in order to prove or disprove it. To ensure that the test was fair, the children were encouraged to change one variable at a time. A lot of thought went into setting up the habitat boxes as ‘choice chambers’ to see which conditions the woodlice would prefer. The behaviour of the woodlice was then observed enthusiastically and recorded carefully! Finally, the woodlice were gently released back into their natural habitat after our investigation.