Self –Study Pack

 Subject – Science
 Grade – 7
 Term – 2nd Term
 Unit – Animal Diversity
 Learning outcomes –

 Compare vertebrates and invertebrates with respect to their unique characteristics

 Explain adaptations of organisms to their environment with relevant examples.
 Examine organisms in the environment and group them as vertebrates and
invertebrates using unique characteristics of each group.
 Demonstrate experimentally, how shape and colour are important for animals to survive
in their environment.
 Appreciate animal diversity.
 State that a dichotomous key can be used for classifying organisms into groups.
 Use dichotomous keys to classify plants and animals.

Activity 1

 Let us classify animals in the environment.

 Read the poem given below. Make a list of animals that are mentioned in the poem.

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Resonating sound of larks and cuckoos,

Herd of deer amidst ferocious bear,

How freely they roam,

In this park!

Flocks of doves and parrots,

Dancing peacocks,

Lapwing with its wailing cry,

And jungle fowl,

Kingfisher with long beak,

Shouted in fear of us.

The green leopard,

Terrible tiger,

Ah! The fox,

The cunning king.

Venomous viper,

Dreadful crocodile,

And monitor with its scaly skin,

Python and cobra

Coiled near them.

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  Classify the list of animals that you have written above into groups according to the features
that they have in common.
 Ex: -

Method of Locomotion

Walking Flying Creeping

Bear Cuckoo Cobra

 What difficulties did you come across when grouping above animals?
 What are the occasions that the same animal falls into several groups?

Activity 2

 Let us identify animals with backbone and without backbone.

 If you have seen or heard that the animals you identified in the song are having a column of
bones that runs vertically downwards from the skull, classify them on the basis of presence or
absence of such a column of bones.

With backbone Without backbone

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 For your knowledge,

 The column of bones runs vertically downwards from the skull of animals is called the
backbone or the vertebral column.

 Animals with vertebral column are called vertebrates and those without a vertebral
column are called invertebrates.

Activity 3

 Classify following animals as vertebrates and invertebrates

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5
Vertebrates Invertebrates

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Activity 4

1. A picture of a forest is given below. Classify the animals in it as vertebrates and invertebrates.

Vertebrates Invertebrates

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Activity 5

1. Scenery from the sea is given below. Classify the animals in it into vertebrates and invertebrates.

Vertebrates
Invertebrates
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Activity 6

1. The picture given below shows some animals that inhabit in an ecosystem associated with a
pond. Classify the animals in it as vertebrates and invertebrates.

Invertebrates
Vertebrates
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 For your knowledge

Vertebrates can be divided into groups as follows

Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, Mammals

Pisces Amphibia

Reptilia

Aves Mammalia

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Activity 7

 Let us identify adaptations that animals bear to suit the environment that they live.
 Tabulate the adaptations that the following animals bear for fulfilling their food requirements,
surviving in habitats and ensuring their protection.

Tortoise Tiger

Grasshopper Porcupine

Cobra
Fish
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 Fulfilling Food Surviving in the Ensuring their
Animal Requirements Habitat Protection

Tortoise

Tiger

Grasshopper

Porcupine

Fish

Cobra

For your knowledge,

 The characteristics that the organisms bear in order to better suit the environment are known
as Adaptations.
 Organisms show various adaptations to ensure their survival in the environment.
 Organisms bear different adaptations for fulfilling food requirements, surviving in the habitats
and for their protection.

Activity 8

 Write down the adaptations of following animals.

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 For your knowledge,

 When the body colour of animals is similar to that of the environment, it is difficult to
separately identify the animals from the environment in which they live. This phenomenon is
known as camouflage.
 Because of camouflage animals,
 Can protect themselves from predators.
 Can easily find their prey.
 Can survive in the environment in spite of the changes take place in it.

Activity 9

1. You might have seen animals that show camouflage in your surroundings. Give examples for
them.

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2. Observe how the following animals have matched their body colour with the colour of the
environment that they live. Identify the animals and describe how camouflage has become
important to them in your own words.

1 ………………………………………………………………

2 ……………………………………………………………..

3 ………………………………………………………

4 ………………………………………………………

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5 …………………………………………………………….

6 ………………………………………………………………

7 ………………………………………………………………….

8 ………………………………………………………………..

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Activity 10

 Observing the streamline shape of the body of some animals.

Things needed – 3 pods of okra, a knife, cello tape, a water tub or a tray

Method -
1. Cut the two ends of one pod of okra and obtain the rectangular middle
part as illustrated in the diagram.

2. Take the two remaining pods of okra and cut the tips of them as shown in the
diagram and fix the two tips with a piece of cello tape.

Cello tape

3. Fix a small pebble to each piece of okra you obtained in the previous steps
with a piece of thread as illustrated in the diagram.

Pin

Pieces of thread with Two equal

Pin
equal length size pebbles

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 4. Allow the two pieces of okra you obtained to float on water in the tray or the tub as
illustrated in the diagram.

5. Note that the piece of okra with streamline shape floats forward faster than the
other.

For your knowledge,

 When the shape of the body of organisms takes a streamline shape, locomotion
becomes more efficient.
 Animals, that locomote in water or air, make use of the streamline body shape to
overcome the resistance caused by the medium of locomotion.

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Which animals possess streamline body shape? Select from those given below.

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Activity 11

 Let us make dichotomous keys.

Complete the following dichotomous key.

Jasmine, Rose, Jak, Breadfruit, Grass, Maize

Plants with unbranched stems

Jasmine, Rose, Jak, Breadfruit

With large Without large leaves

Leaves with Serrated
leaves
leaf margine

Jasmine, Jak

Without
With simple With Large
simple
leaves leaves with
leaves

Rose

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 Parrot, Earthworm, Dog, Centipede, Deer, Crow

With four legs

Earthworm, Centipede, Parrot, Crow

Without a beak
With horns Without horns

Parrot ………………. Centipede, Earthworm

With curved beak Without a beak

With legs Without legs

 Prepare a dichotomous key including the animals that you can see in your home garden.

For your knowledge,

 Classification of organisms on the basis of presence or absence of a certain

characteristic is known as a dichotomous key.

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 Summary

With vertebral column Without vertebral

column
(Vertebrate)
(Invertebrates)

Animals

Characteristics of
animals to better
suit the
environment they
live

Adaptation

1. Matching the body

colour with the colour Camouflage
of the environment

2. Elongated body shape Streamline Body shape

to overcome air and
water resistance during
locomotion.

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