May 9th

When using a dichotomous key you begin at the top of the page starting at number one. While looking at the organism you are studying you compare its characteristics to the description in the first statement with two options. For example most start out asking if it will have color or if it wont have color. Then which ever one matches it will tell you the number to go to with two more options and this pattern continues until you come to a name with the exact descriptions. When creating our own key in class we started out the way most do by color. Then we classified the bacteria into two different groups and continued to narrow them down and create specific descriptions for all until it was narrowed down to the name. The only problems we had was trying to find enough differences to separate them enough to be noticed. We solved this problem by referring back to the notes we took in class about each bacteria that way we could have more detailed descriptions narrowing each one down specifically.