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St Nicholas CE Primary Academy

  • Science

    Classification

    This term we will be looking at what classification means. We will start the term by developing our understanding of grouping items based on their characteristics. We will then move on to exploring how animals (both vertebrates and invertebrates), plants and microorganisms are classified, making use of the Linnaean system.

    Vocabulary

    Carl Linnaeus       Classification      Characteristic       Vertebrate      Invertebrate    microorganism     virus     bacteria     fungi       

    amphibian     reptile       bird        mammal       fish   

    Classification: What better way to understand what classification means and how scientists classify living things than to have a go at creating a classification system for sweets. There were lots of interesting suggestions of how we could sort our favourite sugary snacks.

    Vertebrates: Starting with vertebrates, the Prophets researched the characteristics of mammals, fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles. They then used their knowledge to classify and give examples of each type of vertebrate.

    Invertebrates: Team work makes the dream work. Some team researching today where each group was given a different invertebrate to discover information about.

    Micro-organism experiment: Today we planned an experiment to see what variables affect the growth of mould. Each group picked a hypothesis to test and set up their own experiments by placing slices of bread in different conditions. The comparisons we are testing are: light vs dark, hot vs cold, crust vs no crust and dirty vs untouched. Over the next week we will check on our slices of bread to see which conditions provide a perfect environment for our micro-organism.