Living things can be classified into groups and sub-groups
Plants and animals are two of the main groups of living things
Plants and animals can be sub-divided into many different categories and sub-categories
EXAMPLE QUESTIONS
What different groups could you use to sort different living things?
What different groups could you sort animals into?
What groups could you sort plants into
How could you sort plants or animals of the same type into even smaller groups?
LIVING THINGS CAN BE SORTED INTO CATEGORIES AND GROUPS
Scientists classify things into groups and sub groups according to their cell structures, how they take in nutrients, and how they reproduce.
Organisms that are similar in these three ways end up in the same classification, or kingdom.
In the past, living things were classified into three groups: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom and the fungus kingdom.
Because of the development of more powerful microscopes (for example, the electron microscope), scientists could see that some very small living things did not fit into these classifications and so they created two more kingdoms to accommodate them.
These are know as the protista kingdom (for example, single celled algae) and the monera kingdom (different forms of bacteria).
As scientific research continues other new groups may be found that do not fit into the existing kingdom classifications.
THE ANIMAL AND PLANT KINGDOMS
The most distinct classifications of kingdoms of living things are the plants and the animal.
Animals include mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds and arthropods (insects), among other groups.
Humans are classified in the animal kingdom as mammals.
ANIMALS AND PLANTS CAN BE DIVIDED INTO SMALLER CATEGORIES
Each group can be divided into smaller categories of classification.
For example, reptiles in the animal kingdom can be classified into the common name categories of lizards, snakes, crocodiles, turtles etc
Animals can also be separated into vertebrates and invertebrates.
Invertebrates do not have backbones, vertebrates do.
Similarly plants can be sorted into many different groups.
