Domains of Life: Archaea

In this lesson, you will learn about some of the first organisms to exist on Earth. Learn more about this archaic, or ancient, branch of life as you continue on.

​

Domains of Life: Archaea

​If you were in charge of sorting these organisms, which ones would you think are closely related?

What criteria would you to sort them?

​Biological Domains

​Humans seem to love putting things into categories. Making sense of a new discovery by putting it into a category can feel very satisfying. Early biologists even created an entire branch of science called taxonomy that is dedicated to organizing living things into categories.

​Biological Classification: The Three Domains of Living Things Video

Multiple Select

Which of the following are biological domains?

Select all that apply!

• Eukarya

• Bacteria

• Archaea

• Animalia

​Archaea

​Archaea is one of the three domains of living things. Note that, like the list of words from the beginning of the lesson, Archaea contains the root word archae, which means ancient. The domain Archaea contains some of the first life forms that evolved on Earth.

​There are many characteristics that make archaea unique. Some of these characteristics include:

• the number of cells in an organism;

• the location of DNA within the cell; and

• where archaea tend to live.

​Check out Carl Woese's awesome Discovery!

​Cell Number

DNA

Environment

​Amoeba Sisters Archaea Video

Draw

Complete the Frayer model for the term archaea.

​Let's check in on those brine shrimp!

If your shrimp aren't growing yet, let's research some things that we might be able to do to get the shrimp to grow better!

You can use google or AI to assist you with you research!