1. Taxonomy
8th Grade Science

2. Engage How do you organize your clothes in your room?
What else do we organize?
Supermarket aisles
Libraries
Classes
Teams/sports
Members of a family
Roads
Cities
Money

3. Explore
Shoe Classification

4. Explain
Brainpop

5. What is Taxonomy?
Taxonomy is the study of grouping and naming living things.
Scientists organize things so that they can examine relationships between various organisms, especially when they find new or old organisms
Examples:
Find a new species
Find old fossils
Taxonomy also gives every species a name based on a standard method so scientists from different countries can talk about the same animal without confusion

6. How does it work? There are 6 broad kingdoms
Every living thing that we know of fits into one of the six kingdoms
Each level gets more specific as fewer organisms fit into any one group

7. The modern system of classification has 8 levels:
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class

9. Helpful way to remember the 8 levels
Dumb kids playing catch on freeways get squashed
Or…make up your own…
D K P C O F G S

10. Classification of Living Things

11. Phylum – Body Structures

12. Class

13. After class we have order
The orders within the class Mammalia are described in the following pictures
Lets follow the carnivora order

14. After order we have Family
There are many different types of animals within the family. All with unique characteristics.
Lets follow the canis family

15. After Family we have Genus
All of these animals belong to the family canius.
Because of this we have to specify them into genus and species.
To classify the Grey Wolf we follow

16. Genus… A genus consists of a group of closely related species
Other animals in the Canis group include dogs and coyotes
The genus name is always Capitalized

17. Lastly….Species (Very specific)

18. Species...
A species consists of animals that can mate and produce fertile offspring
Only grey wolves are known as lupus.
The species name is always lowercase

20. An organism is known by two names…
Canis lupus is the scientific name for a gray wolf.
Scientific names of organisms are always italicized
Canis is the genus name
lupus is the species name
This system uses a binomial nomenclature

21. Binomial Nomenclature
Bi means two
Nomen means name
A binomial nomenclature is a classification system using two names to identify an organism

22. Elaborate: The Dichotomous Key
A key is a device for easily and quickly identifying an unknown organism.
The dichotomous key is the most widely used type in biological sciences.
The user is presented with a sequence of choices between two statements, couplets, based on characteristics of the organism. By always making the correct choice, the name of the organism will be revealed.