Everything Life Sciences Grade 10

Most of the diverse species found in South Africa areendemic or indigenousto the country.

• Indigenousmeans that these species originate or occur naturally in South Africa.


• Endemicmeans that these species occur only in South Africa an nowhere else.

10.3 Classification schemes

Classification DUMMY

The practice of classifying organisms is referred to astaxonomy. In order to help understand
why we try and classify living organisms, what sort of mental process it entails and how it
can be done, we’ve prepared an activity for you to do below that is not life sciences related
but conveys the process of classification. Try and think of the problems that arise while
classifying the items below. Can BBC news be entertaining too? If so, should it not be under
entertainment? Do you think that the final level of classification is the most definitive?

Activity: Classification

Aim:

To understand how classification systems work.

Materials:

Pen and paper

Instructions:

1. Listed below are different TV programmes:
   
   
   • Carte-Blanche
   
   
   • Rocky
   
   
   • Isidingo
   
   
   • Rambo
   
   
   • Hitler’s Bodyguards
   
   
   • Generations
   
   
   • Vietnam: Lost Films
   
   
   • BBC news
   
   
   
   


2. Divide these TV programmes above into 2 groups, under the headings: Entertainment
   and Documentary.


3. Now further subdivide the Entertainment group into Action and Soapies groups.


4. Do the same for Documentary using the headings: News/Current Affairs and History.

You have just drawn an example of a dichotomous branching diagram/ tree. All objects can

be divided in this way. We call this a classification system.

Chapter 10. Biodiversity and classification 297