Add to favourites The world contains roughly 8.7 million species! Most of which we haven’t even discovered yet! In fact only 14% of the world’s species have yet been identified and only 9% of those in the oceans. With so many organisms in existence we need some way to categorise and group them. This is called classification. Our first major group of classification is called kingdoms.
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?
Scientists have been classifying organisms into the 5 kingdoms for over 250 years. However, as technology and science evolve so does our understanding of the world. To help us understand what goes into each of these kingdoms, we need to know a little bit about cells.
Cells are the building blocks of life. Similar to how you use bricks to build a house, cells build you and me.
Something with just one cell is called, unicellular (like bacteria), but something with multiple cells (animals, plants and fungi) is called multicellular.
Scientists will ask themselves 3 questions about the cells of an organisms when trying to categories it into a kingdom.
Which of the following do you think make their own food? Scroll over each image to find out.
Select each of the kingdoms below for more information.
To fit into this kingdom you need to:
Humans, insects, fish and birds all belong to this kingdom.
To fit into this kingdom you need to be:
Trees, shrubs, bushes and vines all fit into this kingdom.
To fit into this kingdom you need to be:
Mushrooms, yeast, mould and truffles are all under the Fungi kingdom.
To fit into this kingdom you need to be:
Bacteria are an example of Monera.
Protista is an interesting kingdom. Often organisms that don’t fit into the other kingdoms will end up here. They are more complex than Protista, but can range in size from a single cell to a multicellular organisms.
They do however all have their DNA in a nucleus.
Plankton, Kelp and Amoebas belong to this group.
ACTIVITY
Try this matching activity. Drag and drop the terms below into their correct kingdom. Sort out only, what all organisms in the kingdom have in common.
Science is very broad. It encompasses everything from how to launch a rocket into space, to how a single celled organisms survives in its environment.
When a scientists specialises in a certain area of study, they are called something different. Below are a few examples of different types of scientists.
KEY POINTS
There are 5 main kingdoms. Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Monera and Protista.
WHERE NEXT?
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