Science Worksheet · Grades 4–6
The Galapagos Islands Worksheet
A printable science worksheet for grades 4-6 on the Galapagos Islands. Students read a one-page passage on how the islands were built by volcanoes, the giant tortoises that live nowhere else, and what Charles Darwin really learned there — then answer four multiple-choice questions, six true-or-false statements, and six fill-ins. A complete answer key is included.
Subject
Science
Grades
Grades 4–6
Skill Focus
The Galapagos Islands, life science
Lesson Length
40 minutes
Learning Objective
Students will describe how the Galapagos Islands formed, what makes their wildlife unique, and what Darwin actually learned there.
Lesson Overview
About this worksheet
The Galapagos Islands sit on the equator about six hundred miles west of Ecuador, and almost all of their land is a national park. They are an archipelago — a group or chain of islands. That word says nothing about how islands were made, which is worth knowing, because different archipelagos formed in completely different ways: some are coral, some are the tops of drowned mountains, some are pieces broken off a continent. These are volcanic, built up out of the sea by lava rising from a hot spot beneath the ocean floor.
The name comes from the animals. Galapago is an old Spanish word for saddle, and the giant tortoises here have a shell curved like an old Spanish saddle. They are the largest tortoises alive, they live well past a hundred years, and they exist nowhere else on Earth. There may have been a quarter of a million of them when Europeans arrived; sailors took them for food and introduced goats, rats and pigs that ate the eggs and the young, and the population collapsed.
Europeans found the islands entirely by accident, when a bishop’s ship drifted off course in 1535. English pirates later used them as a hiding place while waiting for Spanish treasure ships. And on September 15, 1835, HMS Beagle anchored here with a young naturalist named Charles Darwin aboard.
The worksheet corrects the famous version of what happened next, and that correction is its best question. Darwin did not stand on the islands and suddenly understand. He labeled his bird specimens so carelessly he could not tell which island each came from, and the insight arrived more than a year later in London, after the expert John Gould examined them and told him they were separate species. Science moved slowly, from evidence, long after the ship sailed home. Page 2 asks sixteen questions in three forms; page 3 is a complete answer key.
How to Use This Lesson
Read the passage on page 1.
Answer the four multiple-choice questions in Section A.
Mark each Section B statement TRUE or FALSE, and be ready to say why.
Write the missing word in each Section C sentence.
Use the answer key on page 3 for self-check or grading.
Discuss why it matters that Darwin’s realization came a year later, and not on the islands.
Printable Resource
A classroom-ready PDF with everything in one printable resource.
Free Member Resource · Printable PDF · 3 pages · Answer Key
The Galapagos Islands Worksheet
A printable science worksheet for grades 4-6 on the Galapagos Islands. Students read a one-page passage on how the islands were built by volcanoes, the giant tortoises that live nowhere else, and what Charles Darwin really learned there — then answer four multiple-choice questions, six true-or-false statements, and six fill-ins. A complete answer key is included.
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