1. Where Do I Belong? Has your mom ever asked you to sort socks?
Have you ever sorted coins?
What are some things that you sort based on shared characteristics?
Scientists have sorted living things, also called organisms, for thousands of years.
By studying common characteristics, scientists have been able to classify living things into categories that help us understand their needs and behaviors.
In this activity, you will explore ways that scientists have grouped living things.

2. Directions for Where Do I Belong?
Read through the instructions for Part I: Where Do I Belong? (5 instructions)
Have one person raise their hand to alert Mrs. Belaski as to your need for the sort cards
Follow instructions 1-4 as written.
May use technology to assist (with my permission)
Complete the Student Journal questions as a group
35 minutes of work time
Stop and review time on the board
Finished?
Check depth of work
Work on vocabulary

3. Classifying Organisms
EQ: Where are organisms found on Earth, and how are they classified?

4. Sorting it all out
Imagine that you live in a tropical rainforest and must find your own food, shelter and clothing from the forest.
What would you need to know to survive in the forest?

5. Sorting it all out You would need to know…
Which plants are safe to eat
Which animals you can eat and which ones will eat you
What types of plants are good for building
You would need some sort of way to put things into categories, or to classify them.

6. Classifying Organisms
Classification is putting things into orderly groups based on similar characteristics.
Classification makes things easier to find, identify and study
Biologist classify to answer the following questions:
How many known species are there?
What are the defining characteristics of each species?
What are the relationships between these species?

7. How Scientists Classfiy
Before the 1600, organisms were divided into two groups: plants and animals.
But as more and more organisms were discovered, some did not fit neatly into either group.
In the 1700’s Carolus Linnaeus developed the modern taxonomy for classifying and naming living things

8. Linnaeus’s Modern Taxonomy
Linnaeus classified all living things based on their shape and structure
The system of classification used today is very similar to the one Linnaeus developed

9. Linneaus’s Modern Taxonomy
Today, scientists use shared characteristics to hypothesize how closely related living things are.
The more characteristics they share, the more closely related the organisms may be.
Example: cats, people, bears, and tigers all have hair and give birth to live babies.
They are all mammals

10. Linneaus’s Modern Taxonomy
And while cats, people, bears and tigers do have some common characteristics, they don’t share all characteristics and can be broken down into even smaller groups.
Linnaeus’s system of classification breaks living organisms into individual categories until every living organism has its own specific name

11. Levels of Classification
There are seven levels of classification, starting with the large and general level of Kingdom, and working to the very specific species.
The levels of classification in order from the general to specific are:
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
King Philip, Come Out For Goodness Sake!

13. Kingdom The most general level. There are six kingdoms: Example: Cat
Animals
Plants
Protists (amoebas)
Fungi (mushrooms)
Bacteria
Archea
This level is very general and all six kingdoms can be broken down even further into phyla
Example: Cat
Kingdom: Animal (Anamalia)

14. Phylum Example: Cat Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Chordata (has a backbone)
“Phylum”is the singular of “phyla”
There are more than 30 phyla in the Animal Kingdom and 10 in the Plant Kingdom
The members of a phylum are sorted into classes

15. Class
The various phyla are divided into classes, depending on even more specific classification criteria.
Phylum Chordata is divided into the classes
Amphibians
Birds
Mammals
Reptiles
Fish
Example: Cat
Kingdom: Animal
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (have a backbone and nurse their young)

16. Order Example: Cat Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora (have a backbone, nurse their young, have special teeth for tearing meat)
Each class includes one or more orders.
Sometimes there is a disagreement as to what order an organism belongs to.
Orders further break down an organism’s class.

17. Family Example: Cat Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae (have a backbone, nurse their young, have special teeth for tearing meat, have retractable claws)
Orders are then separated into families
This is a relatively new scientific concept.
It is a way to group similar genuses together.

18. Genus Families are then broken down into genera (singular: genus).
There are two or more species that share a unique body structure and other characteristics.
The animal’s genus is the first part of the scientific name of an organism.
Example: Cat
Kingdom: Animal
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus: Felis (have a backbone, nurse their young, have special teeth for tearing meat, have retractble claws, purr vs. roar)

19. Species Example: Cat Kingdom: Animal Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus: Felis
Species: domesticus (have a backbone, nurse their young, have special teeth for tearing meat, have retractable claws, purr vs. roar, common house cat)
Genera are then sorted into the very specific species level of organization
A group of individuals that breed together and produce fertile offspring.
The species is the second part in the scientific name.

20. Two part names
It is not necessary to go through this entire seven-level classification system to identify a plant or animal (now I tell you : ) !)
Just two names, the genus and the species is sufficient when describing an organism
This system of binomial nomenclature to describe animals has some rules:
The first part of the name, the genus, always starts with a capital letter and italicized
Example: cat: Felis
The second part of the name, the species, always starts with a lower case letter an is also italicized
Example: cat: domesticus

21. Dichotomous Keys
Another guide to identify organisms is a dichotomous key
A dichotomous key is an identification aid that help scientists identify pairs of descriptive statements
There are only two sequential pairs for each statement.
The person trying to identify the organism chooses the statement that best describes the organism until they reach their conclusion

22. Stay Classy, Living Things
Where are organisms found on Earth, and how are they classified?

23. Stay Classy, Living Things
If you have ever been to a grocery store, department store, or sporting goods store that you have never visited before, most of the time you can still find the items you want. How is this possible?
It happens because the objects in the stores are classified and organized in a manner that makes sense.

24. Stay Classy, Living Things
Likewise, scientists classify living things based on similar characteristics.
Scientists classified organisms into six kingdoms based on the following questions:
● Does the organism have a cell with a nucleus (or cells with nuclei)?
● Is it a single-cell organism or a multi-cell organism?
● Is the organism a producer (makes its own food) or a consumer (obtains food from other organisms)? Instructions

25. Stay Classy, Living Things
After asking the preceding questions, scientists have been able to classify all living things into these 6 kingdoms:
Animal
Plant
Fungi
Protists
Archea(bacteria)
(Eu)bacteria

26. Stay Classy, Living Things
For each of the six kingdoms, use the computer to research the characteristics of the organisms in that kingdom
Then, draw and label some examples of organisms that belong to that kingdom
Info to find about each kingdom:
Are the organisms multicellular (2+ cells), unicellular (1 cell), or both?
Do the cells that compose the organisms have a nucleus and other organelles?
Do the organisms make their own food (producer, autotroph) or eat food (consumer, heterotroph)?
A picture of an organism that exemplifies the kingdom that can be drawn and labeled into the appropriate place
2 class periods allotted
Will be very useful for assignment!

27. After asking the preceding questions, scientists have been able to classify all living things into these 6 kingdoms:
Animal: multicellular, cells have a nucleus, consumes food
Plant: multicellular, cells have a nucleus, makes its own food
Fungi: unicellular or multicellular, cells have a nucleus, consumes food
Protists: mostly unicellular, cells have a nucleus, come make their own food, some consume food
Archea(bacteria): unicellular, cells lack a nucleus and other organelles, some make their own food, some consume their food
(Eu)bacteria: unicellular, cells lack a nucleus and other organelles, some make their own food, some consume their food