LESSON PLAN EXAMPLE: The Classification of Living Things, GRADE 7

Date: 04.07.2019

Teacher: Ali Ihsan ERDAS

Lesson Plan Type: Direct Instruction Lesson Plan + Cooperative learning

Grade: 7

Lesson: The Classification of Living Things

Content Area: Biology- Taxonomy

Time Allocation: 45 min-2 days

TEKS Objectives: (12) Organisms and environments. The student knows all organisms are classified into
domains and kingdoms. Organisms within these taxonomic groups share similar characteristics that
allow them to interact with the living and nonliving parts of their ecosystem. The student is expected to:
(A) understand that all organisms are composed of one or more cells;
(B) recognize that the presence of a nucleus is a key factor used to determine whether a cell is
prokaryotic or eukaryotic;
(C) recognize that the broadest taxonomic classification of living organisms is divided into currently
recognized domains.

Lesson Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

 Organize their representative organisms based on common characters.

 Define and compare the kingdoms of living things.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

 Students should have a basic knowledge of organization.

 Students should have a basic knowledge of living organisms.

Teacher Materials:

 Handout
 PowerPoint presentation
 Worksheets

Student Materials:

 Textbook
 Notebook
  Pencil

Introduction
In science, the practice of classifying organisms is called taxonomy (Taxis means arrangement and
nomos mean method). The modern taxonomic system was developed by the Swedish botanist Carolus
Linnaeus (1707-1778). He used simple physical characteristics of organisms to identify and differentiate
between different species and is based on genetics.
Linnaeus developed a hierarchy of groups for taxonomy. To distinguish different levels of similarity, each
classifying group, called taxon (pl. taxa) is subdivided into other groups. To remember the order, it is
helpful to use a mnemonic device. The taxa in hierarchical order:
 Domain - Archea, Eubacteria, Eukaryote
 Kingdom - Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, Protists, Eubacteria (Monera), Archaebacteria
 Phylum - Invertebrates, Vertebrates
 Class - Fish, Bird, Mammal, Amphibian
 Order - The Organism get it’s Energy?
 Family - Special characteristics of the Organism and it’s relatives
 Genus - First name of Organism
 Species - Last name of Organism

The domain is the broadest category, while species is the most specific category available. The taxon
Domain was only introduced in 1990 by Carl Woese, as scientists reorganise things based on new
discoveries and information. For example, the European Hare would be classified as follows:
Eukaryote --> Animalia --> Chordata --> Mammalia --> Lagomorpha --> Leporidae --> Lepus --> Lepus
europaeus.
Eukaryote is just one of the classes inside of the main class Phyla
Binomial nomenclature is used to name an organism, where the first word beginning with a capital is
the genus of the organism and the second word beginning with lower-case letter is the species of the
organism. The name must be in italics and in Latin, which was the major language of arts and sciences in
the 18th century. The scientific name can be also abbreviated, where the genus is shortened to only its
first letter followed by a period. In our example, Lepus europaeus would become L. europaeus.

Instructional Activities and Procedures

 Teacher shows the following educational song for building up students’ understanding
https://youtu.be/FoZUNdOUj9g

 Teacher shows the following examples for students to remember each hierarchy in a
rank order.
Modifications/Differentiated Instruction

Group work;
Divide class into groups. Assist the students, as required, to plan, discuss the questions on the
worksheets in five minutes.
 Formative Assessment
In their science notebooks, students should write a paragraph on why it is important for
scientists to organize living things. Include their opinions on how to separate all organisms.

Worksheets