1. Let’s Classify!

2. What does it mean to classify?
To classify means to group things according to shared characteristics.

3. The History of Classification
As a young child, you used characteristics such as shape and color to group things.

4. The earliest classification systems were probably based on simple characteristics such as whether the plant or animal was beneficial to humans, harmful to humans, or neither.

5. It wasn’t until the 1700’s when a Swedish scientist by the name of Carolus Linnaeus, classified over 10,000 organisms into groups.
The science or study of describing, classifying, and naming living things is called taxonomy.

6. Linnaeus’s Classification System
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Linnaeus used seven major levels of classification

7. Kingdom was Linnaeus’s largest, most general level of classification
Example: The Kingdom Animalia
Linnaeus then organized these animals into smaller and smaller groups, always based on Shared Characteristics.

8. Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia

9. Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus: Ursus
Species: maritimus

10. Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Class Mammalia
Order Carnivora
Family Ursidae
Genus Ursus
Species maritimus

11. When Linnaeus developed this classification system, he also realized the importance of having a name that is unique and specific to that particular organism.
Common name: polar bear
Scientific name: Ursus maritimus

12. Do you know what groups you belong to?
KINGDOM ANIMALIA
PHYLUM CHORDATA
CLASS MAMMALIA
ORDER PRIMATES
FAMILY HOMINIDAE
GENUS HOMO
SPECIES SAPIEN
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Homo sapiens

13. Taxonomy, like many fields of science, is changing as new knowledge is discovered. In the 1970’s scientists added a level above kingdom called Domain.
The 3 Domains are:
Eukaryota: organisms whose cells have a nucleus and organelles surrounded by membranes
Bacteria: prokaryotes
Archaea: prokaryotes that live in extreme environments

14. Modern taxonomists classify organisms within those three domains based on evolutionary relationships. We’ll learn more about this in upcoming lessons.
What all classification schemes have in common is that they group organisms by Shared Characteristics.
Today you will classify a group of objects based on their shared characteristics.