Page 60 - General and Inorganic Chemistry for Advanced Secondary Schools Students Book Form Five and Six

Biology for Secondary Schools
Activity 4.1: Grouping living things The importance of classification
according to their similarities and
differences
Materials: A variety of small plants,
FOR ONLINE READING ONLY
insects, and other animals, notebook,
and a pen or pencil
Procedure
1. Walk around the school compound
and collect a variety of plants,
insects, and other small animals.
2. Observe and group the collected
organisms according to their
similarities and differences.
3. Write the similarities and
differences among the grouped
organisms.
Caution
(a) Avoid collecting dangerous
organisms, such as wasps,
scorpions, and snake; and
poisonous plants, such as
milkweed and oleander.
(b) Avoid collecting weak or
injured specimens as they will
lead to incorrect observations.
Questions
1. What did you learn from the
activity?
2. Why do you think it is important and natural classification systems.
to classify organisms?
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Biology FORM 1 new.indd 54
Biology FORM 1 new.indd 54
Classification is important in the
study of living things because of the
following reasons.
(a) There are millions of species
of living things in the world.
Grouping them makes it easier to
study and identify them, because
the members of the group have
many characteristics in common.
(b) It makes communication among
biologists in the world easier.
(c) It enables scientists to predict
characteristics of an organism
based on the characteristics of
a group it belongs to. When we
know the characteristics of a
group then we can predict the
characteristics of an organism
in that group. For example, both
an eagle and a chicken are birds.
If we know the structure of the
heart of a chicken, we can predict
the structure of the heart of an
eagle even if we have not seen it.
(d) It helps to understand how
organisms are related in terms of
their evolutionary history.
Classification systems
There are two main types of biological
classification systems, namely artificial
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