Identification and Classification
Learning concept: You will learn how to create, and effectively use a branching dichotomous key which will help you explain why it is necessary to classify organisms based on similarities and differences of particular features.
Warm up activity.
You have just been bitten by a snake and noted the characteristics of it (red belly, black top, thin), why would it be important to identify and classify the type of species of snake you got bitten by?
You will be given 2 minutes to think. After 2 minutes you will go around the classroom and listen to other students share their ideas with the rest of the class.
Afterwards, you will read pages 2-7 of the research paper Woodland Birds of South-east Australia: Identification booklet. You will look through the birds then find all the owls and compare how they are identified (pages 9 and 20).
Woodland Birds of South-east Australia Identification booklet
Create a student based dichotomous key.
Using the unique characteristics of the students in the class, you will sort themselves out to create a human dichotomous key. Within the class there should be enough features and characteristics, ie gender, glasses, dark hair, freckles etc., that you can sort yourselves into a stand-alone category.
As you are completing the activity, your teacher will be writing the dichotomous key on the whiteboard so you are able to track how you arrived at each person.
Create an owl species dichotomous key, owl identification worksheet.
You will be given a sheet containing the images of 6 owls and need to separate them based on characteristics. There is no right or wrong way to do this, but you need to differentiate and seperate the different owl species.
Biological sciences.
There are differences within and between groups of organisms; classification helps organise this diversity (VCSSU091)
- grouping a variety of organisms on the basis of similarities and differences in particular features
Image sourced from Creative Commons.
