Cogitania Students learn the Linnaeus System of Naming Organisms

At Cogitania’s Saturday Botany workshop fourth graders continued their exploration of plant identification and the classification system first introduced by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish Botanist. Carl Linnaeus is famous for his work in Taxonomy, the science of identifying, naming and classifying organisms; plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.

For the hands-on activity each student chose a couple of live springtime plants and went through the identification process using “Go Botany” a plant identification program developed by the New England Wildflower Society. This process involves answering some questions to narrow down to the correct identification. The process is challenging but each student with a little help was able to identify their plant.

We viewed parts of these plants under microscope and observed the chloroplasts in the leaves that contain chlorophyll and in which photosynthesis takes place.

We also looked at “Leaf Snap” an electronic mobile app which uses visual recognition software to help one identify tree species from photographs of their leaves.

Instructor: Nathan Emerson