Biology by Bradford
A3.2 Classification and cladistics: grass skirts
18 quick questions on classification and cladistics, a higher level subtopic, each answered in a word or two. Print a sheet for each team, a key for the checker and a tick sheet, then tape the sheets to the board and race.
How it runs
- SnipA runner cuts one strip off the bottom of their team’s sheet.
- Answer as a pairBack at the table, they write the answer on the strip. No books.
- Get it checkedThe checker reads it against the key: you, or a student holding it.
- Back for the nextA tick earns the next strip. Wrong? Back to the table to try again.
The questions on this sheet
The checker’s key, with every answer, prints with the sheets.- Rank above kingdom, e.g. Eukarya
- Ancestor and all of its descendants
- Branching diagram showing shared ancestry
- Fork representing a hypothetical ancestor
- Any named group in a classification
- Rank between kingdom and class
- Rank between order and genus
- Prokaryotes more akin to eukaryotes
- Molecule whose sequences revealed Archaea
- Classifying organisms by common ancestry
- Starting point of an entire cladogram
- Choosing the tree with fewest changes
- Using mutation rate to date divergence
- Moving a group when new evidence appears
- Ancestor plus only some descendants
- Distant relative added to anchor a tree
- Novel feature that unites a branch
- Plant group split up by DNA evidence