Hello, scientists.

My name is Mr. Wilshire, and in this lesson, we'll be looking at grouping plants.

The outcome for this lesson is I can use observable characteristics to classify plants in different ways.

As always, there are some key words for us to consider as we work our way through this lesson.

The first is observe.

Next, it's groups.

Then, observable characteristics.

And finally, classify.

Don't worry if you're not too sure what some of these words mean.

The meaning should become clear as we work our way through the lesson.

Just in case, the definitions are here for you to have a read off.

So pause the video now and recap, then continue.

The first part of this lesson is called observable characteristics of plants.

Sophia and Laura observe similarities and differences to sort animals into different groups.

There you can see they've got a lion, a wildebeest, an antelope, and a horse in one group,.

They have a lizard, a bear, a crocodile, and a lioness in another group.

Here, you can see that they've classified it.

So they've put one circle as animals with a mane and another circle as animals with no mane.

Or if you've ever done anything similar.

Maybe you've done something similar with toys that you own, or maybe you could think about a way of doing it with the people who are in your class.

They talk about grouping other living things.

Sophia says, "I know that animals are living things and they can be grouped in different ways, but can plants be sorted into groups too?" Laura says, "I think all plants are the same, so they belong to only one big group called plants." I wonder what you think.

Are both the girls correct here or is this something that they're missing? Have a discussion and restart the video when you've done that.

So what do you think? Are they both correct? Let's find out more.

Well, these plants look very similar to one another, so I wonder if Laura is correct.

Can you observe any features that they have in common? Have a look at each of these pictures here and discuss.

Restart when you've done that.

One of the plants there is the monstera, there's the water lily and the horse chestnut tree there.

All of the plants have got something green about them.

They've got green leaves.

I wonder if you noticed anything else in common.

And many plants have got similar features that allow us to sort them into groups.

A lot of plants have got leaves.

I wonder if there's anything else that they have.

So what do you observe that's similar about all of these plants? Have a look at the rose, the tulips, the cherry tree, and the foxglove and decide what's similar about all of them.

Restart the video when you've done that.

So what's so similar about all of them? Well, Sophia says, "I observe all of these plants belong to the group of plants with flowers." Laura says, "Actually, they all belong to the group of plants that have flowers with pink petals." Well, yes, they do all have something pink about them, don't they? They're not just pretty flowers.

Did you observe any other ways that these plants could have been grouped? Maybe you thought about the size of the flowers.

Some of them have got very big flowers and other have very, very small flowers.

Or maybe you spotted that some of these are flowers that you would find very close to the ground, whereas the cherry tree, it's usually going to be very high up in the air.

So actually the cherry tree is an example of blossom, isn't it, whereas the other three are not.

Let's stop and think.

For plants to be grouped together, which of these would be true? Is it that the plants need to have at least one similar feature? Is it that the plants need to have no similar features? Or is it that the plants need to have all the same features and look exactly the same? The correct answer here is A, the plants need to have at least one similar feature.

Plants can be grouped by their observable characteristics.

Sophia says, "An observable characteristic is a feature or property of a living thing that we can see or use our other senses to observe." Observable characteristics can include information about colour, size, shape, or structure.

Remember, they're things that you can observe, things that you can see.

So thinking about that, which observable characteristic could you use to group these plants? There's a horse chestnut and there's an oak.

Have a think and discuss.

Restart when you've done that.

So what did you think of? What observable characteristics could you use to group them? Laura says, "I think they both belong to the group of plants that are trees, and also the group of plants we would find in a woodland." Very true.

Yeah, those are both true characteristics, aren't they? But do you think that Laura is correct? And why? Are they observable characteristics that we could use to group them? Discuss.

Well, what did you think? Well Laura says, "One of my groups is based on where the plants grow." But Sophia says, "When we group by observable characteristics, we can't always see where plants grow just by looking at them." So it's not quite depending on where these plants are growing.

Yes, you would find them in the woodland.

That doesn't mean that we can group them together in this way.

So let's try again.

So Laura tries again.

This time she looks for observable characteristics, not just where they are.

"I can observe the structure of the plants," she says.

"They both belong to the group of plants that have a woody stem called a trunk." Of course, the word stem can be used for lots of different plants, can't it? But on a tree, you would call the stem the trunk.

Are there other observable characteristics that these plants have in common? Have a look at the two pictures again and have a think.

Remember, we are not just thinking about where they would grow, but the characteristics of them.

What do they grow? How tall do they grow? What do they look like? Think about the plants in more specific terms. Restart, when you've done that.

So what did you observe? Let's find out.

Laura says, "Well, I could also group the plants by size because they're both very tall plants.

Their colour is the same too, because they both have green leaves in the spring and the summer." I wonder if you thought of some similar observable differences and similarities with these two trees.

Sophia is then able to go and observe the leaves of these plants a little more closely.

There's some horse chestnut leaves and some oak leaves.

They're both example of green leaves, but they do look very different, don't they? She says, "The shape of the leaves are different.

The horse chestnut leaf is a long oval shape and the oak leaf has wobbly edges." That's very true.

Look, you can see it here.

I wonder if there's any other observable features that you've spotted.

Let's stop and think.

Which observable characteristics did these plants have in common as plant one, plant two, and plant three? Have a think of each of these statements and decide.

The correct answer here is a and c.

They all have thin needles and they're all green.

True or false? When we group plants by their observable characteristics, we only look at the shape of their leaves.

The answer here is false.

Can we justify this? Have a look at these two statements and decide which of these best fits the answer.

The correct answer here is a, observable characteristics can include information about colour, size, shape, and structure.

So here is task A.

Observe these three different plants.

There's a water lily, a fern, and a Venus fly trap.

Can you explain to a partner one reason why each plant may be the odd one out? Have a go with this task and restart the video when you've done that.

How did you get on? Now, your ideas may be slightly different to these, but here's some examples.

Water lily might be the old one out because it has flowers.

The Venus fly trap and the fern don't have flowers on these photographs.

The Venus fly trap might be the odd one out because it has spikes to catch insects.

The Lilly and the fern don't have spikes in this way.

The fern might be the odd one out because it has leaves that are long and thin.

The venous fly trap in the water lily have round shaped leaves.

So these are ways that we could observe the characteristics of these plants, and then we can try and work out which one could be the odd one out.

Great observing everyone.

Well done.

The second part of this lesson is called classifying plants.

Jun and Alex want to learn more about grouping plants.

Jun says, "My cousin is a scientist, that's a botanist.

They study plants and their job involves classifying plants, but I'm not sure what that means." Do you know? What is the role of a botanist? Discuss.

Alex thinks he might be able to help here.

Well he says, "At school we classify different materials like metal, plastic, wood, and fabric into groups." Maybe that's what a botanist is.

Are they just there to group things? Well, Alex thinks he knows.

He says well, "At school we classify different materials like metal, plastic, wood, and fabrics into groups." Is that what classifying is? Is that what the botanist does? Well, classification is sorting objects into groups.

We've done some of this already.

We can classify plants based on their similarities and their differences.

So you can see here in one circle there's a horse, chestnut tree, a beech tree, and an oak tree, and on the other side is a spruce tree, a holly and an ivy.

So how have these plants being classified do you think? Have a good think about their different similarities and differences.

How could they be classified? Restart the video when you've done that.

I wonder what you thought of.

There could be multiple answers to this question, but in this case, the chestnut tree, the beech tree, and the oak tree have been classified as deciduous.

And the spruce, the holly, and the ivy are all types of evergreen.

So stop and think.

The process of grouping plants based on their similarities and differences is called what? Is it observation? Is it naming? Or is it classification? The correct answer here is classification.

That's the process of grouping plants based on their similarities and differences.

Alex visited the garden centre with his nan.

There, he saw lots of different plants, and he says, "I'm going to use observable characteristics to classify the plants I saw in different ways." So there's moss, there's basil, there's cactus, there's a pansy, there's an apple tree, a sunflower, there's a fern, and there's some bamboo.

Lots of different examples of plant.

I wonder if you've got any ideas here.

How is he going to be able to use observable characteristics to classify the plants? Discuss.

So what did you think of? Let's find out some more on the next slide.

He uses his observable characteristics to classify the plants he saw at the garden centre by their size.

I wonder if this is something that you thought of.

So the apple tree, the bamboo, the fern, and the sunflower are all tall, and the short ones are the pansy, the basil, the moss, and the cactus.

Here's another way that he could have classified them.

Your turn.

How has Alex classified the plants this time? Have a good look.

Have a think.

Restart the video when you've done that.

So what did you think? How has Alex classified it? Alex has used observable characteristics to classify plants by their structure.

Did you get it right? Well, the ones in the big circle are not spiky, and the cactus is very spiky.

I wonder if there are any plants that are similar to the ones in the left hand side circle there that you could classify as spiky.

Maybe if there were some roses in there, then they would be put in there because the stems on roses have got thorns on.

Stop and think.

Alex wants to add another plant to his spiky classification group.

So which of these plants could he choose? Is it the bluebell, the tomato plant, or the thistle? The answer here, you could have told by the picture here.

Yes, it's the thistle.

The thistle is very spiky, isn't it? Alex says, "I wonder if I can use observable characteristics to classify the plants I saw as flowering and non-flowering plants?" June says, "Well, I think all plants have flowers, so they would all belong to the same group." What do you think? Are they both correct? Discuss.

So are they able to use observable characteristics to classify them, or do you think that they just should belong in the same group? Jun says that his strawberry plant has fruit on it, so it must be a non-flowering plant.

Alex says, "Well, earlier on in its lifecycle, a strawberry plant actually produces flowers before the fruit develops.

Strawberry plants are flowering plants then." Okay, that's one such example.

Jun then says, "Well, I've only ever seen green leaves and interesting seeds on our sycamore tree, so it must be a non-flowering plant as well." Alex says, "Well, the sycamore seeds have been produced by flowers of the sycamore tree.

They bloom in the spring." Ah, so just because you can't see it in that moment doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all.

So when you're observing plants, it's good to observe them throughout different seasons.

June says, I see now that some plants only have flowers at certain times of the year.

Are there any plants that never have flowers? What do you think? Do you know of a non-flowering plant? Discuss.

I wonder if you were able to think of a non-flowering plant and how it would fit into a classification process like this.

Plants can be classified as flowering and non-flowering depending on whether they produce flowers during their lifecycle.

Remember, that could happen at different times of the year.

Plants don't produce flowers during their lifecycle, include different types of moss, fern, and conifer.

All of these are non-flowering plants.

Mosses are soft and spongy.

They usually only grow a few inches tall.

Ferns often have feather-like shaped leaves.

They're called fronds.

And mosses and ferns don't use seeds to produce new plants and are non-flowering plants.

Conifers are non-flowering plants that use cones to produce seeds instead of flowers.

You may or may are not have known that.

A pine cone is actually full of seeds.

Each of those little brown parts that you can see can snap off to then spawn a new tree.

Most conifers are trees with needle shaped leaves such as pines and firs.

Stop and think.

Which of these plants would be classified as non-flowering? Is it a, b, or c? The correct answer here is a and c, the fern and the moss.

I can see there the courgette plant.

Well, that is a picture of part of the flower, isn't there? You can see some pollinators climbing inside to help to pollinate.

Which observable characteristic could help us to classify plants as flowering or non-flowering? The answer here is a, b, and c, if they have flowers or not, if they have cones or not, and if they have needles or not.

All of those are examples of how we could classify plants as flowering or non-flowering.

Use observable characteristics and your own research to classify the plants on the next slide as flowering and non-flowering.

So you are going to need to have a really good think here.

You could do some books or maybe the internet to research these plants yourself and then fit them into the two different types of group.

Here are all the plants, the bamboo, fern, cactus, basil, apple tree, pansy, pine tree, and a strawberry plant.

Best of luck with your task.

Restart the video when you've done that.

How did you get on? Well, your answers could be similar to this.

The flowering side there.

There's bamboo, an apple tree, a pansy, a cactus, a strawberry plant, and a basil.

I wonder if your research pulled up those results as well.

The non-flowering is the pine tree and the fern.

You may like to think of some of your own different types of plants here that you could fit into these groups.

You can think about how you would be able to classify them.

Well done for completing that task.

Let's summarise our lesson.

Many plants have similar features that allow us to sort them into groups.

Plants can be grouped by their observable characteristics.

Observable characteristics can include information about colour, size, shape, and structure.

The process of grouping plants based on their similarities and differences is called classification.

And plants can be classified into categories such as flowering plants and non-flowering plants.

Well done for completing the task in that lesson there.

I wonder if you can go out and classify some of the plants that you have in your school grounds, or maybe even at home.

Classification is important 'cause each of those plants will have a different reason for growing in that particular place.

If you're able to classify it, you'll know which plants you can group together to help look after them best.

I've been Mr. Wilshire.

Thank you very much for listening.