Title: Plant Taxonomy

Discipline: Life Science

Ability: 7th and 8^th Grade

Time:

NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards:

Objectives:

Students will learn about how organisms are classified and how to use a taxonomic key. This activity can be done with any organisms in which there are many samples of the same taxocene (plants, lizards, fish, etc.) We did the activity with pressed and mounted tree samples.

Discussion Questions:

• What is taxonomy? –The naming, describing and indentifying of organisms
• Why do we classify objects? - To help us communicate
• How does this apply to science?
• Why would scientists need to classify organisms? Can’t just call something a plant. Too many plants.
• What is the name of a scientist who studies plants?
• What tools do scientists use to identify the classification of an organism? Taxonomic Key
• Terminology- Need to learn how botanists refer to the different plant characteristics on order to identify the organism
• Herbarium- Library of plants. Collect, press and mount. Herbariums are important because they keep record of all plants found in certain region. Can keep track of what is locally abundant or scarce in the history of a region.

Materials:

Pressed and mounted tree specimens

Plant taxonomic key

Leaf morphology handout

Activity:

Students work in groups of 4. Each group is given samples of trees. There should be specimens from different genera. There should be 2 different species of each genus. In other words, 2 different types of Maples, 2 different types of Ash. It is helpful when showing why the species are in different families, to have samples with compound leaves and simple leaves (see handout)

Explain to the student that they will be determining the classification of different specimens in front of them. There should be a chart on the board the looks like the following:

Speciment # Leaf Edges Types of Leaves Leaf Genus Species

Arrangement

Students should copy the chart into their notebook and fill it in as they identify each species.

Part 1:

- Roles: Key reader, note taker

- Go though leaf characteristic handout. Use samples from herbarium

- Q1 means Question 1

- Go directly to Q2

- Go through key

- Genus and species names are in parenthesis and italics

- In notebooks write down the genus and species of plants and the characteristics of each plant that make them different from each other. Students should use terms they have learned to describe specimens

Part 2:

- Tell the students that they have just keyed out plants from 3 different genera. In other words, if the plants were cars, one specimen would be Toyota, another Mercury and another a Nissan.

- Students will now identify species from the same genus

- Add in other Maple and Oak specimens

- Students should key out these specimens and describe how the species are different from each other

Self- Assessment/ Reflection:

This lesson went well in all of the classes. The only additions to this lesson would be to make sure to have some specimens with compound leaves. As it was, most of the specimens had simple, opposite leaves. When filling out the chart, having some specimens with compound leaves will help drive home the point of why species are classified in different genera. It should also be stressed that when determining the types of leaves, the overall shape should be taken into consideration.