Preposterous Dichotomous Keys

This website is called Welcome to the World of Agnes Pflumm. Agnes is literary character created by Merrie Koester Southgate who is a science education novelist and illustrator. Agnes is a scientifically-minded, curious young girl that loves to experiment and explore. This website provides the necessary skills  for students to learn dichotomous keys, in a creative way. This lesson plan can easily be downloaded as a PDF and contains specific instructions on how to use dichotomous keys to classify mythical aliens. The activity includes a direct instruction component, followed by a formative assessment in which the students create their own dichotomous key for classifying their own creature creations. The activity is really based on the u201cI do-We do-You dou201d instructional strategy.

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

Objectives:

The students will be able to

  • Use a dichotomous key to identify unknown organisms.
  • Create a dichotomous key for a group of unknown organisms. 

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Applying

References

Contributors: