Cryptozoology Dichotomous Key: Monsters, Spooks, And Ghouls

This Cryptozoology Dichotomous Key is a great secondary science Halloween activity or end of year wrap up when the AP Biology or state exams finish. We all know how antsy high school students get when Halloween comes around.

You can keep them entertained with taxonomy over monsters, beasts, mythological creatures and strange diseases. This dichotomous key is a mixture of reality and myth. Students are given 25 organisms they need to identify. I also included two suggestions for extension activities.

I usually use this as a cooperative lesson with my students paired up so they can work the dichotomous key together.

I upload the power point to the class website and have my students work with a partner on a laptop.It is a lot of fun to hear them talk about each situation using educational dialogue. This is also a good activity for flipped classrooms.

If you do not have a set of classroom laptops or ipads you can also print the power point slides and place small groupings around the room and turn it into a centers activity. You could also print the slides out as class sets.