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Naming Jelly Beans

Time Frame

1 class periods of 60 minutes each

Group Size

Individual

Authors

Utah LessonPlans

Summary

Students will do this activity to help further understanding of classification.


Materials


Background for Teachers

Students will use a key specifically designed for "Jelly Belly" Brand or Sam's Club jelly beans. They will identify them by color and eat them to determine whether they have correctly identified the flavor or not.

This can get expensive (they are about $5.00/lb) depending on the number of classes you have. The jelly bellies are sometimes available at Costco but many stores now sell them. If your legislative money is gone ask your principal for the money. If that doesn't work, ask students to bring them in.

Two keys are provided. One is for the name brand Jelly Bellies, the other is for the Sams Club kind (Thanks to Jason Carwin and his classes for doing the necessary tasting to create this key) Pick the key that best matches your jelly beans.


Student Prior Knowledge

Students should know how to use a key. If not, this is a good activity to teach them. Not all students will want to eat the candy but other students will happily eat it for them and tell them if they are correct on the flavor.


Instructional Procedures

  1. Read the introduction to the lab with students and show them where the beans are found.
  2. Read the procedures and describe the use of the key.
  3. Tell students that most scientific names are in Latin or Greek and they often end in "ius" or "ium". Give some examples: Canius lupus (wolf) Felix domesticus (housecat) Homo sapiens (human) The first letter is capitalized and the second is not. They can be written in italics or underlined.
  4. Allow students time to complete the activity.
  5. Ask students how many flavors they correctly identified and have them share some of the names they made up.


Assessment Plan

Scoring Guide:
1. Students correctly used key to identify jelly bellies………………….4
2. Students made correctly written "scientific" names………………….4
3. Students participate and stay on task…………………4


Bibliography

Lesson Design by Jordan School District Teachers and Staff.


Created: 10/07/2014
Updated: 02/05/2018
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