Classification & Dichotomous Keys
A way to group living things based on shared features.
What is classification?
A living thing that makes its own food (usually using sunlight).
What is a producer?
One full spin of Earth on its axis takes about this long.
What is 24 hours (one day)?
A push or a pull.
What is a force?
In a solid, particles are closely packed and mainly _____.
What is “vibrate in place”?
A tool that uses pairs of choices to identify an organism.
What is a dichotomous key?
An animal that eats only plants.
What is a herbivore?
The seasons are mainly caused by Earth’s _____.
What is Earth’s tilt (on its axis)?
When forces on an object are equal and opposite, the forces are _____.
What are balanced?
The change of state from liquid to gas is _____.
What is evaporation (or boiling)?
In “Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species,” this level is most specific.
What is species?
A diagram that shows many feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
What is a food web?
When the Moon appears to change shape over a month, we call these _____.
What are lunar phases?
If forces are unbalanced, an object’s motion can change by speeding up, slowing down, or _____.
What is changing direction?
A mixture where one substance dissolves in another is a _____.
What is a solution?
A feature you could use to separate birds from mammals in a key.
What are feathers? (Accept: hair/fur for mammals if written as the contrast.)
These organisms break down dead matter and recycle nutrients.
What are decomposers?
When the Moon blocks sunlight from reaching Earth, it is a _____.
What is a solar eclipse?
The force that pulls objects toward the centre of Earth.
What is gravity (gravitational force)?
A mixture of sand and water can be separated best by _____.
What is filtration?
(Accept: sedimentation/decantation as partially correct, but filtration is best.)
In a dichotomous key, each step should give you this:
What are two choices (a pair of opposites)?
If a top predator is removed, prey numbers usually ____ and plant biomass may ____.
What is “increase” (prey increase) and “decrease” (plants decrease)? (Accept: “change” if they explain a chain effect.)
Tides are mainly caused by the gravitational pull of the ____ and the _____.
What are the Moon and the Sun?
If two students push a box with 30 N east and 10 N west, the net force is _____.
What is 20 N to the east?
To separate ink colours in texta on paper, you would use _____.
What is chromatography?