Plant Kingdom: Introduction and Classification of Plants PPT/Notes

Topic: Introduction to the Plant Kingdom
96-slide PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

This PowerPoint and accompanying notes is for a typical high school Biology class. No biology class is complete without a survey of the Kingdom Plantae. In short, life could not exist on earth without the plants. Plants are the producers in every food chain. Plants carry out photosynthesis, producing organic compounds from inorganic compounds. The plant uses much of this glucose as a source of energy, but a portion of the glucose is passed up the food chain. This sustains life on earth. Not only do plants produce food for all heterotrophs, they also provide the oxygen that fills our atmosphere.

PLEASE NOTE: This product is included in my bundled complete unit plan which can be viewed here: The Plant Kingdom: Introduction and Classification. Complete Unit Bundle of Products.

This is one of the “must-teach” topics in a biology class. With the use of many colorful and engaging photographs, my students respond favorably to this topic. If you have never taught a lesson using a PowerPoint presentation, you have to give it a try! My students always prefer this to a traditional lecture. The use of eye-catching photos and diagrams rarely fails to stimulate a lively class discussion.

This PowerPoint is called “Introduction to the Plant Kingdom.” It consists of 97 slides that are colorful, informative and visually stimulating. Pictures and diagrams are included that will greatly enhance your instruction to your students. This product also includes a set of notes for the teacher (12 pages) and a set of notes in outline form for the student (17 pages). Graphics, diagrams, clip art, and photographs were chosen to capture the attention of the student as the lesson is being taught.

Note: Please note that some of the diagrams used in this product are my own hand drawn diagrams. I find that diagrams of liverwort and moss life cycles are often overly complicated and I have drawn my own diagrams, life cycles, and flow charts to simplify this information for my students.

Topics covered by this PowerPoint:
1. Introduction to Plants: Importance of plants to life on Earth, definition of a plant.
2. Plant life cycle: Alternation of generations, sporophyte and gametophyte generations, haploid and diploid phases, the production of spores by meiosis, flow chart showing alternation of generations.
3. The Transition of Plants to Land: The algae were the first plants on earth, evidence that algae are the ancestors to the land plants, advantages to a life on land, challenges to a life on land.
4. Cladogram showing the evolution of mosses, liverworts, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms from ancestral algae.
5. Traits of the True Land Plants: Alternation of generations, spores produced by sporangia, multicellular gametangia, apical meristems, vascular tissue, nonmotile gametes, root system, protection from dehydration.
6. Classification of Land Plants: Vascular and nonvascular land plants, bryophytes, tracheophytes, seedless plants, seed plants, gymnosperms, angiosperms, monocots and dicots.
7. Flow chart showing the classification of the land plants.
8. Bryophytes: Characteristics of bryophytes, examples of bryophytes, explanation of why the bryophytes are still tied to a watery existence, bryophytes are nonvascular plants, bryophytes have a dominant gametophyte generation.
9. Example: The Liverworts. Characteristics of liverworts, students will draw and label the structures of a liverwort, liverwort life cycle.
10. Example: The Mosses. Characteristics of mosses, students will draw and label the structures of a moss, moss life cycle.
11. The Seedless Vascular Plants: The evolution of vascular tissue, the importance of xylem and phloem, why ferns are classified as seedless vascular plants.
12. Characteristics of ferns, students will draw and label the structures of a fern, fern life cycle.
13. The Seed Plants: Seed plants are the dominant plants on earth, two groups of seed plants, gymnosperms and angiosperms, the advantage of having a type of reproduction free from water, adaptations seen in the seed plants, cones and flowers, pollen, seeds, the evolution of seed plants.
14. Characteristics of gymnosperms.
15. Characteristics of angiosperms.
16. Comparison of monocots and dicots.

Please note: This product covers the content found in an introductory chapter on plants in a first year biology class. These topics are NOT included: (1) The specialized tissues of roots, stems, and leaves, (2) Plant reproduction, (3) Plant behavior and hormones.

This PowerPoint was written with a typical biology I class in mind. It can easily be edited to meet your needs.

I have included a set of notes to accompany this PowerPoint. It includes a complete set of notes for the teacher, and an outline of the notes for the students. Students will use the outline as the PowerPoint is being presented and they will fill in the notes as the lesson is being taught. Several formats are included for your convenience: doc, docx, PDF, ppt and pptx.

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