1. Classifying Organisms: Taxonomy Overview Power point Presentation to accompany Lesson 9 in the Biodiversity Teaching Experiment Written by: Jennifer Doherty, Cornelia Harris, and Laurel Hartley Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy Long Term Ecological Research Math Science Partnership 2012 Disclaimer: This research is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation: Targeted Partnership: Culturally relevant ecology, learning progressions and environmental literacy (NSF- 0832173). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

2. Taxonomy

3.  science of classifying organisms --groups related organisms together --assigns each a name

4.  About 1.5 million species named  2-100 million species yet to be discovered

5. spider monkeysea monkey sea horsegray wolf fireflycrayfish mud puppyhorned toad ringwormblack bear jellyfish Common names can be confusing and names can vary by region.

6.  Organisms can have more than 1 common name but  all organisms have only 1 scientific name -usually Latin or Greek -developed by Carolus Linnaeus

7. Two-word naming system  -Written in italics (or underlined if handwritten) -1st word is Capitalized --Genus -2nd word is lowercase ---species  Examples:  Felis concolor- Mountain Lion, Cougar  Homo sapiens-Human  Panthera leo- Lion  Panthera tigris-Tiger

8.  Devised the current system of classification, which uses the following schema:  Kingdom  Phylum  Class  Order  Family  Genus  Species

9.  Organisms are sorted into nested groups  Related organisms are grouped together

10.  Related groups  have common ancestors  have DNA similarity  Related organisms have some similar traits. For example:  Physical traits  Food requirements

11.  If we know what group an organism belongs to  Then we know some traits of that organism  The finer scale of classification (e.g., Kingdom v. Order) the more we know about the traits of an organism.

12.  If we identify something as an animal  Then we know it must eat to get its food  Because organisms in the animal kingdom must eat their food  If we identify something as a dragonfly  Then we know it must be a predator  because organisms in the dragonfly order are predators

13.  Rodents  Mouse  Rat  Primates  Orangutans  Chimpanzees

14.  Arthropods  May fly  Crane fly