Sexual Selection
Your child can explain why a worker bee dies to protect its hive. It shares so many genes with its sisters that saving them passes on its own genes.
In curriculum terms
Explain sexual selection as a form of natural selection: runaway selection for peacock tails, bird of paradise displays, and frog calls; explain kin selection and altruistic behaviour — why worker bees die to protect the hive, why meerkats stand guard at personal risk (Hamilton's rule, inclusive fitness); introduce game theory in animal behaviour using the hawk-dove model; define cognitive ethology and survey evidence for animal emotions, play, and culture
Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →
Try this together
Can your child explain why a worker bee dying to protect the hive actually makes evolutionary sense — even though the bee never has its own offspring? What's the logic that makes this a successful strategy?
Where this sits on the map
Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.
solid = must come firstdashed = helps
Curriculum alignment
Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.
This skill sits beyond Year 6 in the Australian Curriculum, so no F–6 code is matched. It also sits beyond the NSW K–6 syllabuses. It also sits beyond Level 6 in the Victorian Curriculum.