Coin Dichotomous Keys
As students began to dive into the world of scientific research, they quickly learned that scientists often need a way to classify and identify different kinds of things like trees, species, etc. Enter the dichotomous key! Once a classification is made, a dichotomous key allows someone to find the classification of an object by following a list of branching paths. At each branch, the path splits in two; by following the unique path that leads to your object, you can identify it.
To practice working with this kind of system, students made their own dichotomous keys to classify a set of coins from different places and times. They first created visual branching trees, then used these trees to create a written dichotomous key,
Click on each of the visual trees to see that group’s written dichotomous key!
