Climbing the walls
| Links to the story | Key Stage 2 and 3 programmes of study | Possible learning outcomes | Big ideas |
| Climbing the walls | describe the life process of reproduction in some plants (KS2) | Know that ferns can grow in new places because their ferns are light and flat in the air Appreciate that the genome contains information that the organism uses to grow and develop |
adventures in time and in space being and becoming flow-and-recycle life depends on life pass on information what is life? |
What grows on a vertical cliff wall 2 metres above the ground, and how did it get there?
This story starts with an observation, followed by a question. The answer is surprising – ferns, one of the oldest land plants. This story is about the different stages of the adventure of this fern plant.
One thing that is worth emphasising is that everything takes a long time. It might take a year for the spore to germinate into the tiny gametophyte and another eighteen months for the mature fern to grow up from the gametophyte. I suppose if your lineage is about 390 million years old, then you can afford to take your time!
The organisms exist on different time scales is a big idea in biology, and one that our stories will return to regularly.