1. Make a list of organisms with which students should be familiar, and ask them to place the organisms into the correct kingdom based on their known characteristics.
2. Make a list of unfamiliar organisms, along with their characteristics, and ask students to determine the kingdom to which they belong.
3. Discuss the evolutionary relatedness of mammals, perhaps asking students to consider the different Australian marsupials that fit into the various niches filled by other mammals in other parts of the world. Have students consider how the marsupials are more closely related to one another, because of the niches they fill, than to the other mammals that seem to look more like them.
4. Discuss using a dichotomous key to key out an unknown organism.
5. Discuss whether there is any one thing that defines a living organism, or whether there are any characteristics other than the ones listed in this chapter that are common to all living things. Discuss whether it is necessary for an individual organism to reproduce, for example, or whether an individual can evolve. (Actually, the entire population or species is considered to be able to evolve, not the individual.)
6. Discuss how the unity of all life is a result of the development from unicellular ancestors with the same basic chemical structures and metabolism.
7. Discuss how organisms diversify due to the effects
of mutation and selection by the nature of the environment.