Classification: A Life Skill


Goal: To introduce students to classification as a useful skill in daily life.

Objectives: Students will demonstrate ability to:

  1. Define and give examples of classifications
  2. Explain the purposes of classifying items and information: organizing, storing, locating
  3. Group items according to their characteristics
  4. Use classification keys to locate and identify
  5. Apply what they have learned to classification exercises and everyday uses

Summary: Students will learn about ways to classify, uses for classification, and how to construct a key, in preparation for field identification and keying activities to follow.

Content Areas: All

Materials Needed:

Handout:

  1. How to Construct a Classification Key
  2. Classification Worksheet/ Evaluation
  3. Plants of the Mount St. Helens Lahar - Key (a sample dichotomous key.)

Evaluation: Have students discuss in small groups, then write short essay answers to questions on worksheet.

Instructional Sequence:

  1. Introduce the activity by reading/summarizing the following:

  2. Divide the class into groups of 10 or 12 students.

  3. Have each student take off one shoe and put it into a center pile.

  4. Divide the shoes into two piles. Every shoe in one group must have a feature that no shoe in the other group has. Write this distinguishing feature down as 1A on a chart similar to the handout. Its opposite, then, will be 1B.

  5. Ignore one pile of shoes for the time being. Pick another feature that allows you to divide the remaining pile of shoes into two smaller groups. Write this feature and its opposite after 1A as 2A and 2B.

  6. Repeat steps until each pile is reduced to one shoe, and the owner's name is filled-in on the chart

  7. Go back to the pile that was left behind and repeat the steps. If you are confused, study the key.

  8. To test the accuracy and clarity of your key, ask someone from another group to match one shoe to its owner. (Everyone should cover or remove and hide his/her remaining shoe.)

A sample classification key




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