This work can be given as a simple lesson for younger children
as an introduction to living things and then given again in an
expanded version to older children before their introduction
to the Classification Charts. Refer to the book Parade of
Life, published by Prentice Hall, for detailed information
you or your children may be seeking on these animals.
Materials:
...Picture of a moneran, protist, fungus, plant, animal
Presentation:
How many living things do you
think there are in the world? It would be impossible to say,
so to make things easy, biologists have divided them into five
big kingdoms.
Moneran:
Bacteria is the oldest living thing on the earth. Bacteria is
in the Moneran Kingdom. Bacteria are tiny organisms that
can only be seen by a very high-powered microscope. Blue green
algae from the Archaic Era 3.5 billion year ago was actually
a bacteria. There are helpful and harmful bacteria in the world.
Helpful bacteria makes yogurt. One type of harmful bacteria gives
you strep throat.
Protists:
Protists are
one celled organisms. Like the bacteria, protists are very tiny
and still need a microscope to be seen. Protists evolved about
1.5 billion years ago. The diatom, amoeba and algae are protists.
Fungi:
All fungi are organisms that cannot make their own food. They
need to find energy and chemicals by growing on a source of food.
Then they release chemicals on the food they are eating. This
chemical works something like your digestive juices in your stomach.
The chemical digests the food and the fungus re absorbs it. Yeast
and mushrooms are types of fungus.
Plants:
Plants are organisms
that can make their own food. They have lots of cells that are
very specialized. There are many kinds of plants from simple
to very complex. Some plants that you know are mosses, ferns,
algae, flowering plants.
Animals:
Animals are many-celled
organisms that have specialized tissues and organs. Animals must
search for their own food. Their bodies will not manufacture
it. There are many kinds of animals from very simple to very
complex. They are divided into animals with a vertebral column
or backbone and animals without one.
