In the 18th century, Carl Linnaeus published a system for classifying living things, which has been developed into the modern classification system. People have always given names to things that ...
When you look at the world around you, how do you categorise or group what you see? One of the broadest groupings is 'living' and 'non-living'. This may sound simple, but it is sometimes ...
Plants make seeds that can grow into new plants, but if the seeds just fall to the ground under the parent plant, they might not get enough sun, water or nutrients from the soil. Because plants ...
Poisons are substances that cause harm to organisms when sufficient quantities are absorbed, inhaled or ingested. A toxin is a poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms ...
Sexual reproduction is a way of making a new individual by joining two special sex cells, called gametes. In the sexual reproduction of animals and plants, the male and female gametes join to ...
Scientists divide plants into two main groups depending on whether they reproduce by seeds or spores. Plants that reproduce by seeds Seed plants have special structures on them where male and ...
The flowers and fruit of flowering plants come and go as part of their life cycle. Some flowering plants don’t even have stems and leaves all the time. The fruit and vegetables we eat come from ...
A mineral is an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline and that has been formed as a result of geological processes. Examples include quartz, feldspar minerals, calcite, sulfur ...
The life cycle of ferns is different from other land plants as both the gametophyte and the sporophyte phases are free living. This interactive illustrates the alternation of generations in ...
One of New Zealand’s most well known insects is the wētā, of the Orthoptera order, but there are thousands of other insects species, some of which we know very little about. Rights: Photo by Tom ...
All living things depend on one another to live. Animals eat plants and/or animals to survive. Food webs describe the feeding connections between organisms in an ecosystem. The three main groups ...
Scientists currently consider that New Zealand has approximately 230 species of fern in about 50 different genera. They are widely distributed throughout the country, including around 42 species ...
Although earthworms are classified as animals, their bodies are quite different to animals that live above the ground. This video highlights some of the interesting physical characteristics ...
Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass. All physical objects are composed of matter, and an easily observed property of matter is its state or phase. The classical states of matter ...
The life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Click on one of titles to find out more about each stage.
What do you think of when asked to visualise a plant? Is it the feed crop growing in the paddock next door or a large kauri tree growing in a forest? Is it a tiny microscopic alga or the potted ...
Flowering plants need to get pollen from one flower to another, either within a plant for self-pollination or between plants of the same species for cross-pollination to occur. However, pollen ...
Toxicity can be measured by the effect the substance has on an organism, a tissue or a cell. We know that individuals will respond differently to the same dose of a substance because of a number ...
Humans have many reasons to grow plants. We use them for food, for building materials, for pleasure and for many other purposes. A plant really just has one reason to grow – to reproduce and make ...
Plants are living: They grow and die. They produce new individuals. They are made of cells. They need energy, nutrients, air and water. They respond to their environment. Plants are different to ...
There are ferns in most New Zealanders’ backyards and local environments. Ferns are green flowerless plants with divided leaves that tend to grow in damp, shady areas. The developing leaves of ...
Use this interactive to label parts of a flower. Drag and drop the text labels onto the boxes next to the diagram. Selecting or hovering over a box will highlight each area in the diagram.
New Zealand’s most identifiable butterfly is the monarch (Danaus plexippus). Although found in many places around the world, the monarch is considered a New Zealand native because it became ...
In this activity, students use two separate online interactives or paper-based graphic organisers to explore these key science ideas: what makes something living and what makes something an ...
