--- title: "Plant, animal or something else?" subtitle: "Year 7 Biology · Classification · Lesson 2" --- # Plant, animal or something else? **Name:** {{field-24}} **Date:** {{field-15}} **Class:** {{field-15}} > **Key question:** A mushroom pops up on the lawn overnight. It grows from the ground and doesn't walk away, so it must be a plant. Right? :::teacher-note **In one sentence:** Students place organisms into kingdoms using observable features, justify each placement, recognise a hard-to-classify case, and see that kingdoms sort by features rather than relatedness, a model revised as evidence improved (AC9S7U01, node 2, a hinge node). **Students should be able to say:** I can name the five kingdoms. I can place an organism in its kingdom and give the observable feature that decides it. I can explain why some organisms are hard to classify. I can explain why kingdoms don't always show which organisms are related, and why classification changes with new evidence. **Width:** the unmarked parts are the floor every student does (Engage, Explore, Explain, Evaluate). Typical and Wider sections add contexts, not difficulty. Students work in the online tutorial alongside this sheet. ::: ## Engage :::keep-together **Is a mushroom a plant?** ☐ Yes: it's alive and isn't an animal ☐ No: it can't make its own food from sunlight, so it belongs to a different group ☐ Yes: it grows in the ground and doesn't move My prediction, and why: {{lines-3}} ::: :::teacher-note **What happens:** No. A mushroom isn't green and can't make food from sunlight; it absorbs food from dead material. It belongs to the fungi. ::: ## Explore Try it on the board in the tutorial. Was your prediction right? What was different? {{lines-2}} ## Explain: features decide :::keep-together ### Sort them **Which kingdom does each belong to?** Groups: Animals, Plants, Fungi, Protists, Bacteria - Kookaburra: {{field-15}} - Wattle tree: {{field-15}} - Yeast (used to make bread rise): {{field-15}} - Paramecium (one cell with a nucleus, in pond water): {{field-15}} - Huntsman spider: {{field-15}} - Kelp (a giant brown seaweed): {{field-15}} - Bacteria that cause tooth decay: {{field-15}} - Grass: {{field-15}} - Mould on an orange: {{field-15}} - Coral: {{field-15}} ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** Kookaburra → Animals; Wattle tree → Plants; Yeast (used to make bread rise) → Fungi; Paramecium (one cell with a nucleus, in pond water) → Protists; Huntsman spider → Animals; Kelp (a giant brown seaweed) → Protists; Bacteria that cause tooth decay → Bacteria; Grass → Plants; Mould on an orange → Fungi; Coral → Animals ::: :::keep-together ### Plants or fungi **Which feature best separates plants from fungi?** ☐ Fungi are smaller than plants ☐ Plants make their own food using sunlight; fungi absorb food from other material ☐ Plants grow in soil; fungi don't ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** Plants make their own food using sunlight; fungi absorb food from other material ::: :::keep-together ### Why features **Why do scientists use observable features to classify?** ☐ Anyone can check them, so everyone sorts the same organism the same way ☐ Because organisms choose their own group ☐ They always show which organisms are most closely related ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** Anyone can check them, so everyone sorts the same organism the same way ::: :::keep-together ### Closer relatives **DNA evidence shows which living things share a recent common ancestor. Which is a mushroom's closer relative?** ☐ A sea star (an animal) ☐ Neither: fungi aren't related to anything ☐ A fern (a plant) ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** A sea star (an animal) Fungi and animals share a more recent common ancestor than fungi and plants do. Kingdoms sort by features; they don't always show who is related. ::: :::keep-together ### Why it changed **Scientists once used two kingdoms (plants and animals), then five, and now group life into three domains. Why did it keep changing?** ☐ New evidence (microscopes, then DNA) showed groups that didn't fit the old system ☐ The earlier scientists were careless ☐ Living things have evolved into new kingdoms since then ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** New evidence (microscopes, then DNA) showed groups that didn't fit the old system Microscopes revealed single-celled life that was neither plant nor animal; DNA showed that 'bacteria' are really two very different groups (bacteria and archaea), and that protists aren't one family. Classification is a model, revised when the evidence demands it. ::: ## Mix it up :::keep-together **Looking back at why scientists classify: which is a reason to group living things?** ☐ To decide which organisms are better than others ☐ To make the living world look tidy ☐ To use names every scientist understands, and to show how organisms are related ☐ To put them in alphabetical order ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** To use names every scientist understands, and to show how organisms are related Scientists classify to identify organisms, to communicate clearly with one name, and to show how organisms are related. ::: :::typical ## Elaborate: a hard one :::keep-together **Euglena is a single cell that swims with a tail, and it is green: it makes food from sunlight, but also eats when it is dark. Why is it hard to classify?** ☐ It doesn't have any features ☐ It is too small to see ☐ It has features of both plants (makes food) and animals (moves and eats) ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** It has features of both plants (makes food) and animals (moves and eats) It is placed with the protists, but it shows why classification systems keep changing as we learn more. ::: ::: :::wider ## Elaborate: the full address of a kangaroo :::keep-together **Put the red kangaroo's classification in order, from the biggest group to the smallest.** A. `Family: Kangaroos and wallabies (Macropodidae)` B. `Phylum: Chordates (animals with a backbone)` C. `Order: Diprotodonts (Diprotodontia: kangaroos, wombats, koalas and possums)` D. `Species: Osphranter rufus (red kangaroo)` E. `Class: Mammals` F. `Genus: Osphranter` G. `Kingdom: Animals` Correct order (letters): {{field-24}} ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** see the program below Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species: each level is a smaller group that shares more features. The two-part scientific name is genus + species: Osphranter rufus. ```science Kingdom: Animals Phylum: Chordates (animals with a backbone) Class: Mammals Order: Diprotodonts (Diprotodontia: kangaroos, wombats, koalas and possums) Family: Kangaroos and wallabies (Macropodidae) Genus: Osphranter Species: Osphranter rufus (red kangaroo) ``` ::: ::: ## Evaluate: look back Write one sentence: "At first I thought… Now I think… because…" **Revision summary** - Living things are grouped by **observable features** into **kingdoms**: animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria. - **Plants** make their own food from sunlight; **fungi** absorb food from other material; **animals** eat other living things. - **Protists** are mostly single cells with a nucleus; **bacteria** are single tiny cells with no nucleus. - Some organisms (Euglena, algae) are hard to place: classification is a tool that changes with evidence. - Kingdoms sort by **features**; they don't always show who is **related**. Fungi are closer relatives of animals than of plants, and protists aren't one family. - Scientists now group life by evolutionary relationships, using DNA: **three domains** (bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes). The five kingdoms are still a useful way to sort what you can see. ## Exit ticket :::keep-together **A slime grows on a dead log. It isn't green and it absorbs food from the wood. Which kingdom? Why?** {{lines-3}} ::: :::teacher-note **Answer:** Fungi: it can't make food from sunlight and it absorbs food from dead material. :::