These 5th grade students were learning about dichotomous keys and their teacher wanted them to make their own key. They first worked through this dichotomous key for smiley faces. They were tasked with identifying the genus and species names for the smiley faces in this chart. In order to do so, they opened the presentation and put it in play mode. This helped students see how the key worked and how the presentation is linked up.
Next, the students were provided with this Creature Feature document. They worked with partners to fill out this chart with a unique name for each character, and they determined what differentiated characteristics the characters had. This helped them to create the questions to guide the user through the dichotomous key for their creatures. Once all the slides were set, they hyperlinked the text boxes to jump to a different slide based on your selection until you successfully identify the creature. Here is an example of the finished Dichotomous Key. Make sure you want it in Presentation mode and click on the links in order to use it correctly.
