Keep Placing Cake Orders For Good Students
It's the mnemonic device used to remember how organisms are scientifically classified:
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.
Classifying organisms and looking closely at their characteristics has been a topic of focus for Year 7 Science. The girls have participated in three labs designed to help them classify plants and animals.
In the first lab, the girls became junior taxonomists and worked in groups using dichotomous keys to identify unknown fish. We discussed occupations that would find dichotomous keys beneficial and talked about how a key can help save lives if we are unsure about an insect or reptile bite.
Our second lab involved viewing specimens in each of the animal phyla. The preserved frog in a jar was a class favourite! The girls were able to identify animals as having radial and bilateral symmetry, and they compared organisms in the same phyla. The questions they had, ranged from how the animals were preserved and where they came from, to how they were classified together and who decides that. The curiosity was outstanding.
Next week, we will conclude this topic by exploring the native plants on the Iona campus. The girls will look at the characteristics of leaves, size, structure, flowers, and seeds to classify the plants into their proper phyla. We had a fantastic learning experience and may just have some future biologists among us!
Anna Davila
Science and e-Learning Teacher