Classification Exploration

In this outdoor activity, your class will go on a bug hunt and become zoologists. They will come up with their own classification systems to sort common invertebrates into groups.

This activity can be done in school fields, parks and gardens. 

• Key Stage: KS2 Year 3 and 4 (ages 7-9)
• Time required: 45 minutes

Running the activity

1. In the classroom, introduce the topic and play the accompanying video for your class. 
2. Take your class to a nearby outdoor space. Then split the class into groups and hand out equipment.
3. Demonstrate exploring the environment and highlight likely hiding spots. For example: roll back logs, carefully lift light flowerpots, move leaf litter around to see what might live underneath.
4. Demonstrate how to move the invertebrate into a bug box safely. Put the box on its side and gently brush the animal inside. Spoons can be useful for scooping up animals in soil. Emphasise the importance of remembering where you found them so you can return them to their habitat later. 
5. Once a few different invertebrates have been caught, ask each group to sit down together and use their senses to learn about the animals. 
6. Ask your class to put their animals into different groups. There is no ‘right’ answer here as long as the children can explain their decisions. 
7. Once the groups have finished, groups can share the animals they found and how they were sorted.
8. Carefully return the invertebrates to where they were caught. And put back any moved logs or pots as you found them.

Background science

One way to study nature is to arrange living things into categories. This is called ‘Taxonomy’ and it involves classifying, or sorting, living things into groups based on physical characteristics. Sometimes this can give taxonomists clues about how different types of living thing are related, but it is not always so simple.

When classifying invertebrates, a good place to start is by counting the number of legs. For example, invertebrates with six legs are insects. They are more closely related to each other than to invertebrates with eight legs such as spiders.

It is also important to pay attention to other features. Garden snails and earthworms both have no legs, but they belong to different groups. In this case it is important to note features which are different such as the hard shell on snails and the worm's segmented body.

Classification can help us understand how living things are related to one another, and it can reveal other interesting information.

For example sharks and dolphins have similar body shapes, they both live underwater, and they both have fins and flippers.

Despite these similarities the two groups of animals are not closely related. Sharks are their own group and breathe through gills. Dolphins are mammals which breathe air and give birth to live young who are fed milk by their mothers.

Their body shapes are similar because they are adapted to swimming quickly in the ocean, not because they are closely related. This is an example of convergent evolution and the similarities can tell us a lot about living underwater.

Sorting animals by their size could show how much food they need to eat. Sorting by colour could tell you about how animals protect themselves. For example, some animals blend in with their surroundings (camouflage), while other animals use bright colours as a warning to potential predators that they are poisonous to eat.

Common garden invertebrates:

Suggested extension activities

Classification and naming

• Use an identification key to use the features your class has observed to identify the animals which have been caught. Many of the Latin names of these groups are based on descriptions of features like legs or wings.
  • Download a simple terrestial animal ID chart (PDF 1.7MB)
  • Download a simple pond-life animal ID chart (PDF 1.6MB)
  • Download the OPAL invertabrates ID guide (PDF 2.9MB)
• Students can research the meanings of some Latin names, or invent their own as a science-based creative writing activity.

Creative Writing inspiration

• Look at the groups of your animals and make lists of adjectives to describe them. Use your creativity to combine a few of your favourite words to name this specific group of animals.  

Miniature Habitat Gardens

• Record information about the habitat where you found your favourite animal. Note the different types of plants that are living nearby. Recreate the habitat in a jar, container or tray. You might even keep and observe the animals for a few days before returning it to the wild.

Graphing biodiversity

• Collectively as a class, count how many of each different types of animal were caught. Draw a graph to record the information. Which animal did you find the most of?
• Experiment with creating graphs based on the different ways students sorted the animals. Do any results stand out?

National Curriculum Links

KS1 Year 2

• Living things and their habitats 

• Animals, including humans

KS2 Year 4

• Living things and their habitats 

KS2 Year 6

• Living things and their habitats