Activity Template
Subject Area(s) Biology, Life Science
Associated Unit
Associated Lesson
Activity Title
Animal Branching Diagram
Header
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Grade Level 7 (7_-_7)
Activity Dependency
Time Required 45 minutes
Group Size 4
Expendable Cost per Group $0.25
Each group needs a set of photocopied animal cutouts.
Summary
Students will construct a branching diagram. They will classify organisms according to shared
derived characteristics.
Engineering Connection
This activity is about making branching tree diagrams due to evolutionary relationships. The
study of evolution is related to biomedical engineers. They use evolutionary theory to design
medicines and technology to treat diseases. Including viral and bacterial diseases, which are
constantly evolving, and genetic diseases, which are heritable.
Engineering Category
(1) relates science concept to engineering
Level of Inquiry
Students have to choose four animals to include on the branching tree. They were told to choose
two invertebrates and two vertebrates. This directed their branching tree and made it easier for
them to think of things that were different between the animals. The subject of making
branching trees is restricted and not that easy to make inquiry based.
Keywords
Animal, branching tree, shared derived characteristics, invertebrates, and vertebrates
Educational Standards
State science:
Branching tree diagram
7.3.d Students know how to construct a simple branching diagram to classify living groups of
organisms by shared derived characteristics and how to expand the diagram to include fossil
organism.
Structure and Function of Living Organisms.
7.5 The anatomy and physiology of plants and animals illustrate the complementary nature of
structure and function. As a basis for understanding this concept
7.5.a Students know plants and animals have levels of organization for structure and function,
including cells, tissues, organs, organ systems and whole organism.
Pre-Requisite Knowledge
This activity would work best with students that have already been exposed to different
kinds of animals. The animals that they should know about are: sponges, cnidarians,
worms, mollusks, echinoderms, arthropods, and some knowledge about vertebrates.
Specifically information their symmetry, skeletons, and other morphology.
Learning Objectives
After this activity, students should be able to:
 Classify different types of animals
 Describe the difference between an invertebrate and a vertebrate animal
 Explain what a shared derived characteristic is.
 Make a branching diagram
 Add an extinct animal to their branching diagram
Materials List
Each group needs:
 Set of photocopied animals (this should include both invertebrate and vertebrate animals)

A hand out for each student
To share with the entire class:
 none
Introduction / Motivation
Scientists and other people classify organisms in order to better understand them and to
describe them to other people. Species are grouped in to units that can reproduce
among themselves. People use branching trees to show evolutionary relationships
among different species. They use shared derived characteristics, which are a
homologous traits that is inherited from a common ancestor. Animals are split into two
main groups vertebrates and invertebrates. Vertebrates have in internal skeleton with a
backbone and invertebrates do not. The students will draw evolutionary relationships
by making a branching tree diagram. It is possible to fit extinct animals on the trees by
using what we know about their bodies.
Vocabulary / Definitions
Word
Definition
Branching
A picture that shows evolutionary relationships between organisms. Scientists
Tree Diagram use both morphological characteristics and DNA evidence to make them.
Shared
A homologous trait that is shared by all members of a group.
Derived
Characteristic
Homologous A part of an organism that was inherited from its ancestral species. A good
Trait
example is the bones in the arm of a human, wing of bird and flipper of a seal.
Vertebrate
An animal that has an internal backbone
Invertebrate
An animal that does not have an internal backbone
Procedure
Background
Give the students background about branching diagrams, and invertebrate and vertebrate
animals.
Before the Activity
 Make copies of the hand out and the animal photo cut outs
With the Students
1. Go through the introduction
2. Break up the students in to groups of 4
3. Give each group the animal cut outs.
4. Have the students sort the animals into invertebrate and vertebrate animals
5. Draw a branching diagram and answer the questions on the hand out.
6. Conclusion
Image Insert Image # or Figure # here, [note position: left justified, centered or right justified]
Figure 1
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Attachments
Animal branching diagram hand out
Safety Issues
 none
Troubleshooting Tips
Students have a really hard time grouping animals into vertebrate and invertebrate animals even
if they can tell that it’s a certain kind of animal. For example they can tell that a lobster is a
crustation but they do not know that it is an invertebrate. We had too many animals for them to
sort and the activity took too long. Also it was important to choose very different animals to
make the branching diagram. For example it was better for them to pick a mollusk and an
arthropod rather than two arthropods because there are more obvious differences. Also students
tried to pick traits like lives in the sea. Which is not a good marker of evolutionary relationships.
Also the students frequently made correct for this activity but scientifically incorrect branching
diagrams.
Investigating Questions
Students could figure out the correct evolutionary relationships by looking them
up on the Internet or in a book.
Assessment
Pre-Activity Assessment
Title: Warm up
Activity Embedded Assessment
Title: Animal Branching Tree Diagram
Post-Activity Assessment
Title: Lab Reflection
Get the students to write a paragraph about what they thought of the lesson. What they learned
and what was hard.
Activity Extensions
Activity Scaling
 For less advanced: Give them more direction about which animals to use
 For more advanced: Don’t give them as much specific instruction about which animals to use

Additional Multimedia Support
References
Other
Redirect URL
[For TE submissions only]
Owner
Thea Wang, UCLA Science and Engineering of the Environment of Los Angeles, NSF GK12
Contributors
This activity was adapted from a hand out made by Katherine Peace.
This activity has been classroom tested in the 7th grade classrooms at Culver City Middle School
within the Culver City Unified School District California.
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