Classifying and organising living things using images

Lesson idea. Lesson activity and sample materials.

Teaching approach. This lesson offers opportunities to explore ways to classify living things as well as characteristics which might be relevant, and how to address difficulties that may arise when trying to classify things in this way. The activity may be enhanced by the use of ICT⁽ⁱ⁾ software (e.g. Picasa) but could be carried out with paper-based resources.

This lesson presents a good opportunity for small group work^(ta) and some inquiry^(ta) into how we classify; and why some classification methods might be more useful, or more scientifically interesting than others. There is also a good opportunity to use different sorts of questioning^(ta); to encourage pupils to question each other; to engage in peer assessment^(ta) and to focus discussion^(ta) on the scientific method^(ta) using key vocabulary^(ta).

Resource details
Title	Classifying and organising living things using images
Topic	[[Topics/Living things|Living things]],  [[Topics/Using images|Using images]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Assessment|Assessment]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Questioning|Questioning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Language|Language]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Group work|Group work]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Inquiry|Inquiry]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Discussion|Discussion]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Scientific method|Scientific method]]
Learning Objectives	To have experience of and develop confidence with the different ways in which living things can be classified into groups To develop knowledge of and use some of the characteristics of living things and ways to classify and organise them.
Format / structure	1 x activity outline and sample materials (photos)
Subject	[[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Primary|Primary]]
Additional Resources/material needed	See activity outline below - you'll need sets of photos (sample .zip files given in the activity outline) and computers to allow pupils to organise the materials
Useful information	Using photo organization/slideshow software (Picasa) students organise images that have been provided into various groups or categories. They may also add labels and/or descriptions where appropriate.
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Organising images for a narrative, OER4schools
Other (e.g. time frame)	Good starter activity & prompt for raising discussion questions about classification in science
Files and resources to view and download	Activity Outline with links to photo files (and extension to astronomy images): Classifying and organising living things using images/activity Extension to Astronomy images: Second activity is more an annotation or show and tell one with a set of astronomy images that studenst could annotate, label (with tablet) or organise