Classification

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

King

Phillip

came

over

for

good

spaghetti

We will be learning about the different Kingdoms throughout the year. Since this is LIFE SCIENCE, we will be learning about living organisms. All living things are made of one or more cells and can be found in one of the kingdoms described below.

The first two Kingdoms are Prokaryotes: Archaebacteria and Eubacteria. We will spend a few weeks learning about these very interesting unicellular organisms. We will spend a few days learning about Protists and Fungi. Next are the Plants the foundation of our food web. We will spend about a month learning about these producers and how they make food/ energy through a process of photosynthesis. The last Kingdom is Animalia. The end of the year will be spent learning about different animals (invertebrates and vertebrates) and how the organ systems inside of animals differ.

I cover material in a little different order. Instead of diving right into cells, we will have a brief introduction to Classification (dichotomous key and learning general characteristics about the different kingdoms). As we learn about the first two kingdoms (Archaebacteria and Eubacteria) we will be learning about the cell organelles in Bacteria which leads us into the next unit: Prokaryotes. Classification and Bacteria are combined on the test. Please see Prokaryotes for a list of assignments, projects and the test explanation.

NGSS

MS-LS1-1. Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells; either one cell or many different numbers and types of cells.

MS-LS1-2. Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.

MS-LS2-3. Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. (Decomposers are introduced)