Scientists group organisms, or living things, with similar traits together. Kingdoms are the largest group, and there are five of them: plant, animal, fungus, protist, and bacteria. Grouping organisms into kingdoms helps scientists understand similarities among living things.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the classification of living things. In addition, there is a sing-along video that students can perform karaoke-style that will help them remember the classification hierarchy. Lyrics for the karaoke song are available to be printed. After utilizing these two resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
In this lesson, students explore how scientists classify living organisms, then gather information about five of the main categories of microbes: bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, and algae, and contrast the term microbes with systems of scientific classification to show how it is distinct and that microbes are found across the tree of life.
