School › Classification › Ages 6–7
Sorting living things
Scientists sort living things into groups by looking closely at them. Find out about animals, plants and fungi, animals with and without a backbone, and sort some animals yourself.
Read
There are so many living things that scientists sort them into groups. This is called classifying.[1]
To sort them, scientists look closely at what living things have: legs or no legs, wings, fur, feathers, a shell…[7]
Animals, plants and fungi are three big groups. Mushrooms are fungi. Fungi are not plants: they cannot make their food from sunlight like plants do.[4]
Some animals have a backbone, like you, a dog or a fish. Most animals have no backbone at all: insects, worms, crabs, octopuses and jellyfish.[6]
Every kind of living thing gets a special science name with two words. A wolf is Canis lupus.[3][2]
Try it: Sort the animals
You need
- About 10 animal pictures or toy animals per group (for example a dog, a bird, a fish, a snail, a spider, a butterfly, a worm, a frog, a cat, a crab)
- Two hoops or two large sheets of paper
- Sticky notes and a pencil
Safety
Use pictures or toys, not live animals. Keep small toys away from mouths.
What to do
- Look closely at all the animals. Talk about what you see: legs, wings, fur, feathers, shells.
- Choose one question with a yes or no answer, for example: 'Does it have legs?'
- Put the 'yes' animals in one hoop and the 'no' animals in the other.
- Write your question on a sticky note next to the hoops.
- Mix them up and sort again with a new question, for example 'Does it have wings?'
- Can another group guess your question just by looking at your hoops?
What happens, and why?
Scientists sort living things by features they can see. A yes-or-no question splits a group into two smaller groups. A list of such questions is called a key, and scientists use keys to find out what a living thing is.[7]
Play: Backbone or no backbone?
Does this animal have a backbone? Tap the right group.
Your best score is kept only on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Quiz
Other ages: Ages 10–11 · Ages 15–16