Taxonomy and Classification Unit: Part 1 Introduction and Activities

This unit includes 8 Lessons (50 minutes each) and 23 pages of printable work bundle. The Work Bundles has students fill-in critical notes (red slides), conduct exciting hands-on activities, answer questions, interpret graphs, includes games, built-in quizzes, and much more. The work bundles chronologically follow the detailed and interactive set of slideshows. A Quiz Game concludes for a great review and additional assessment. Answer Keys, video links, crosswords, built-in quizzes, and much more are provided. Everything you need to run a fantastic learning experience is provided. Everything arrives in editable format if you want add in your own slides and activities, and the slideshows and work bundles can easily be converted into Google Slides / docs for friendly Google Classroom learning. This unit explores Taxonomy and Classification of the Kingdoms of Life, and also tangents into Zoology to keep things interesting and exciting. Your students will love everything about this unit.

Brief Description of the 8 Lessons in this Unit

Lesson #1 Taxonomy and Classification Introduction (50 Minutes): The slideshow begins asking students to describe where they are from. The PowerPoint then begins to break down their location starting from the very broad, Universe - Galaxy, Solar System, Planet, Continent, Country etc all the way down to the very specific - Street address. A neat activity follows that has students place their sneakers / footwear into a pile in the middle of the classroom. Students are then asked in the PowerPoint to separate the sneakers into a few piles based on similarities in their structure. Another activity along the same lines that involves nuts and bolts is described. The definition of Taxonomy is then discussed, and then a few slides about Carolus Linnaeus is presented. The first reference to King Phillip is made. Small references are placed here and there. Teacher just pretends that they don't make much sense. Later in the lesson the acronym Did King Phillip Come Over For Good Spaghetti is made. The students will piece it all together later. Classification is discussed. A neat activity that has the students try to guess the genus and species names of some common animals is provided in a step by step guess and then the answer is revealed / slide sequence. A poll follows this challenge that asks the students if they prefer science names or common names (all choose common names). Next, A Brown Bear are presented as well as the Mountain Lion over many slides that show how common names can become very confusing. At the end of the sequence the students are asked the poll question again and most students see the need to have a more organized naming system. Having the students 180 from preferring common names to seeing the pitfalls of common names is always a neat moment.

Lesson #2 Species, Phylogeny (50 Minutes). Next, the definition of a species is described with visuals, discussion over hybrids, mules, tigon's, ligers, is discussed. Phylogeny is defined and students learn about clades with some color coding of a phylogenic tree. A series of questions with a phylogenic get students connecting which species are connect to which. All of the questions in the slideshow correspond to the student work bundles so students are active learners.

Lesson #3 Dichotomous Key: Student's learn what a dichotomous key is, and then answer a series of questions with visuals to demonstrate understanding. A question in the work bundle and slideshow has student's group various symbols into four categories based on similarities and differences. Some slides that provide advice when using a dichotomous key are provided. Students then complete two dichotomous keys in their work bundle. The first one is a lot of a fun, and the second is more challenging about salamanders. Both are fantastic, and have their answers provided at the end in the end in the slideshow.

Lesson #4 Make a Dichotomous Key: Students then make a dichotomous with 6 fictional organisms. They must create choices and then have a peer try and complete their key. An example one is provided in the slideshow after some trial and error by the students. An online dichotomous key link is provided and students try to identify two types of leaves. The lesson concludes learning the classification uses homology, and some neat visuals show how various mammals all show skeletal homology with the same number and order of bones in the leg. Embryonic homology is discussed and students try and figure out which embryo is which animal. DNA as a tool is discussed, and eventually the Red Panda is compared to the raccoon rather than the Panda.

Lesson #5 Domains and Kingdoms. The Domains of life are then covered, and a step by step drawing of the 5 Kingdoms of Life is provided. Each Kingdom is provided in detail and is accompanied by images. Student's fill out a a portion / matrix of their work bundle, and they get good at learning important vocabulary such and multicellular vs unicellular, and autotrophic vs heterotrophic. They then answer a series of questions that allows them to demonstrate understanding. A King Phillip character keeps popping up now and again and the students don't know who he is or why he appears. Eventually the students realize about King, Phillip, Came, Over, For, Good, Spaghetti, acronym to remember the Taxonomic Ranks, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, species. This is always fun to see the students put it all together on their own rather than having the teacher just tell them.

Lesson 6 Genus and Species: Students learn about the genus and species and Carlos Linnaeus and the binominal two name system. They also learn about Super groups and subspecies. Nice visuals with wolves help to reinforce the learning. A series of visual slides breaks down a large grouping of organisms into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. This step by step activity, removes species from a large group as the naming system becomes more specific. This activity is very helpful to the students. The slideshow then goes through the taxonomic ranks of the human species. If you have name tags (our office usually has them) Student write their taxonomic name on it and wear them proud all day. Three hidden box activities concludes the PowerPoint where students guess the picture beneath the box as shapes are removed one at a time. This is a really neat PowerPoint that is incredibly interactive with the students and makes learning Taxonomy exciting.

Lesson 7 Crossword Puzzle and "Review Game" A 20 question, bonus, and final question review Game wraps up the learning. It's the last page on the work bundle and reviews the entire learning experience. You can decide if you allow your students to use their work bundle as a resource.

Lesson 8 Answer Version / Self Assessment. An answer version is provided so the students can self-assess. The teacher advances the review game, and the question is provided before the answer so the teacher can call upon groups. A crossword puzzle and solution is also provided. An answer version to the work bundle is provided and the teacher can show on the screen and students can asses their work bundle. There is a self assessment sheet in the guide folder.