The 5 Living Kingdoms: A Jigsaw Activity

Over the past few weeks in science class, we studied living and nonliving organisms, which led to learning about the 5 Kingdoms. Dr. Smirnova split us up into 5 base groups, and in these groups we were each to choose one of the kingdoms. We learned that the 5 kingdoms were Monera, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Animalia. I chose Fungi as my topic. After each person in the class chose a kingdom to research, we split up into "expert" groups based on the topic that we chose. Then, during Spring Break, we researched our topic and collaborated with our expert group via Google Docs. This was great because we were able to use our peers' insight on the topic; not just our own. When we got back to school on Monday, we were all experts on our topic! It was now time to teach our base group members all about our topics. I actually really enjoyed doing this. Although it's more work on our part, I feel that we do actually learn a lot more; rather than listening to a lecture for the entire class time. Overall the activity was really fun! We learned so much valuable information. My only wish would be that we had a little more time.