Encourage tinkering with ideas, relationships, connections. Set up situations where students have to find information not readily available in school texts. Provide opportunity for students to design open-ended explorations of the concept. Provide multiple options so students can plan a unique "proof" of learning.

Students learn how to use an already prepared classification key.

Objective: To have the students learn how to use an already prepared tool for identification of living things, a classification key.

Activity: Working in pairs, the students discover how to use a prepared classification key. Most lab books contain at least one exercise where the students are taught to use a key to identify a series of unknown organisms. Some books provide pictures of families of fish, or sharks, or dinosaurs, or even imaginary monsters.

Assessment: Success of the students in correctly identifying the unknown organisms by using the key provided.