Summary
Why are the scientific names of plants and animals so long and hard to say? Those are their names in binomial nomenclature, the two-name identification system developed by Carolus Linnaeus hundreds of years ago! In this BrainPOP movie, Tim and Moby explain why all organisms need to have long and sometimes unpronounceable names. You’ll learn about the major subcategories, or taxa, that biologists use to classify organisms. These include: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. And you’ll see how different animal species are ordered in the tree of life, including all of the kingdom and taxa they belong to. This is not classified information—so come and learn!
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
A few questions to talk through after watching Classification:
- What is one new thing you learned about classification?
- Can you explain it to a partner in your own words?
- Where might you see this in the real world?
- What is one question you still have?
Quick work-a-long
Try it:
- Write one sentence explaining classification.
- Draw or give one example of your own.