More About This Resource...

• In this classroom activity, created to complement the Museum's Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibit, middle school students explore cladistics by creating a cladogram.

  • The activity opens with background information for teachers about cladistics.
  • After discussing the relationship of some familiar mammals, students learn about how scientists use cladistics to determine evolutionary relationships among animals..
  • Working in pairs, students complete a worksheet that directs them to examine coins and create a cladogram based on their shared characteristics.
  • Then, small groups of students examine dinosaur illustrations, identify their shared features, and those features to classify the dinosaurs.

• Completion Time

  Approximately 1 period

• Topic

  Paleontology

• Subtopic

  Cladistics

• Subtopic

  National Science Education Standards
  Grades 5-8:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • structure and function in living systems

  Science and Technology CONTENT STANDARD E: 

  • abilities of technological design• understandings about science and technology

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of science

• Learning Standard

  National Science Education Standards
  Grades 5-8:
  Science as Inquiry CONTENT STANDARD A: 

  • abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry• understanding about scientific inquiry

  Life Science CONTENT STANDARD C: 

  • structure and function in living systems

  Science and Technology CONTENT STANDARD E: 

  • abilities of technological design• understandings about science and technology

  History and Nature of Science CONTENT STANDARD G: 

  • science as a human endeavor• nature of science