Description
Featuring Carolina’s Perfect Solution® specimens
Grades 9-12. For a class of 32 working in groups of 4. Students explore animal diversity and learn to classify different animals using a cladogram. The kit includes a classroom set each of preserved crayfish, grasshoppers, perch, frogs, and rats. Students observe and record similarities among the organisms then create a cladogram predicting their phylogenetic order based on external-morphological traits. Student groups then dissect each organism, observe internal anatomy, and share their findings with the class. A detailed teacher’s manual containing background information, pre-lab practice problems, extension activities, dissection guides for each organism, and reproducible student sheets is also provided.
Student Objectives:
- Observe anatomical evolutionary patterns across the animal kingdom
- Study the external anatomical structures of a crustacean, an insect, a fish, an amphibian, and a mammal
- Learn how to construct phylogenetic trees or cladograms
- Dissect an organism representative of Kingdom Animalia