When we were on our California Vacation we went to the San Diego zoo. While we were there I saw teenagers on a field trip taking ‘selfies’ with various animals. Listening in they were on a scavenger hunt to find certain types of animals and certain endanger statuses. That got me thinking of how I could incorporate our trip into our schooling this year. One of our subjects was looking at the biological classifications. The Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species stuff. We had lots of photos so I knew I wanted to include those. (The pictures can be clicked on for full sized versions)

First we figured out the names of the animals in each of the photos. I also included our photos from Seaworld. I put post it notes on the backs of each photo. Once we had the names, or as close as we could remember. I know that some are not exact, for example I’m not sure if we have African or Asian elephants.

I then had Philip look up each animal and write the classifications on the post it note. This could have gone faster but he felt it necessary to read each Wikipedia article on each animal.

We then sorted the pictures, first by Phylum and then by class, order and family. We were only able to organize down to the order level due to the size of the wall I chose. We then created labels for each unique classification.

We then organized the labels and the pictures on the wall. My wife said it made it clearer for her as well. It is one thing to read about how we are all interconnected but another to see it up on a wall.

My daughter who is grade 4 then went and looked up human and made her own picture. She also figured out where it would go on our display.

 

Overall I would say it took between 10 and 15 hours to complete but that also counts the extra reading that he did. I am fine with the extra but it wasn’t necessary for the project.