Title Content Area(s) Sub Content Area(s) Grade Level(s) Overview

Classifying Living Things Literacy, Science, Information Technology Reading, Writing, Life Science, Education Technology 3, 4

Strand(s)/Domain(s):
Analysis and Interpretation of Informational Text/Citing Evidence; Reading Comprehension Strategies; Informational Writing: Reports; The Living World - Life Science; Basic Operations and Concepts; Communication

Recommended Length/Duration:
3 Days

Learning Goals:
Essential Questions: How do living things vary (or differ) from one another? How can living things be classified/grouped? Students will understand ... - The great variety of living things can be sorted into groups in many ways using various characteristics to decide which things belong to which group. - Organisms of the same kind differ in their individual characteristics (traits) (e.g., Even though all dogs are of the same species, they can have very different traits.). Students will be able to ... - Identify some of the characteristics of living things - Classify living things by their characteristics - Create a dichotomous key identifying plants and/or animals

Description and Sequence Description/Sequence: Session 1a. Show the class a picture of an animal and a picture of a plant. Ask them what the two have in common, and then ask them how they differ. Show them a picture of another animal. Ask them how they could describe this animal to a blind person without using the name of the animal. Tell them that they will next play a game with a partner (allow them to choose their partners). Ask for volunteers (one of the pairs of students) to demonstrate to the class how to play the game. Place a stack of cards between the pair and ask one of the students to take the top card and look at the animal on it without showing anyone else. Ask the student to describe the animal on the card to the other student without mentioning the animals color or name, and ask the other student to try to guess what animal is on the card based on the first students description. Give stacks of cards to each pair of students and ask them to play the game until all of the cards are gone (each stack should have at least eight cards, enough for each student to describe four animals to their partner). When finished (or after a around five minutes), ask the class to give examples of the types of characteristics they used to describe the animals. Next, ask them how they might group the animals in their stacks, and ask them to work with their partner to make groups of the animals. When finished, discuss the criteria they used to make their groupings. Ask the students to consider how scientists classify plants and animals, and to share with their partner their idea/prediction (they may make the connection that scientists also use the characteristics of plants and animals to classify them). b. Ask the students to search online for how scientists classify animals. Ask them to type/write a short report on their findings in their blog (if students dont have their own blog, they can type it in a word processing program and copy the file to the teachers shared folder or drop box, or send it to the teacher as an email attachment (or type it directly in the body of the email message)). Sessions 2 & 3 c. Ask the students to share their findings, on how scientists classify animals, with the class. Discuss as a class. Ask them to share with a talk partner whether or not their prediction was correct. d. Show an example of a simple dichotomous key, and demonstrate how they are created and used to identify plants and animals. Note the importance of first identifying the characteristics of the plants and animals, and grouping them by their characteristics, when creating the keys. e. Demonstrate how to use Inspiration (or a similar mind mapping program/tool) to create a dichotomous key. Ask the students to choose eight animals (students with special needs may choose only four animals)

and to create a dichotomous key to identify the animals. Give the students the choice to use Inspiration (or another digital tool) to create their keys or to draw them by hand. Students that finish early can also add clipart (or draw pictures) to illustrate the animals in their key. f. Ask each student to write an explanation of the decisions they made when creating their key, including the characteristics and groupings he or she used. Students should post this to their blog (or send it to the teacher in an email) along with an image of their key (those drawing their keys by hand can simply hand in their keys to the teacher).

Formative Assessment:
Written report on how scientists classify animals

Summative Assessment:
Dichotomous key and written explanation of the key