Observations of a Venus Fly Trap

Today we were learning about adaptations. None of the children knew what this word meant. We used a dictionary and found out that it meant " a change to something so that it is suitable for a new purpose or situation'. We think that it means 'how the Venus Fly Trap plant has changed over time so it can live in swampy areas'. It uses its traps to catch insects so that it can get the food it needs, so that it can grow into a healthy plant. Because it grows in poor, wet soils it needs to get extra nutrients. It catches bugs and uses these to help it have a healthy life.
We drew Venus fly traps and labelled the parts. We are going further now so we learned more about the parts of a Venus Flytrap - about cilia and trigger hairs. Cilia are the hairs around the outside of the trap and trigger hairs are inside the trap. There are a lot of cilia and only a few trigger hairs.