Since living things has been familiar to approach the natural science, the teachers ofthe elementary and junior high schools have commomly used the biological materials. Consequently, the students know the names of various plants and animals. However, most of them did not recognize dragonfly and grasshopper as animal. Probably they have understood that word of animal means only four-footed animals. It has been reported that a similar example was shown in a certain university. Ten percent of the students did not think thatinsect belong to animal kingdom. This shows the result from that the basicbiology has been minimized throughoutthe biological education.
Systematics and morphology are needed to be incorporated into the biological curriculum, espe cially, in the elementary school. The school children willgain the valuable information during the process ofidentification of living things, but not the amount ofthe knowledge in this field. From this pointofview, the method ofsystematics or morphology is very and suitable for the students to cultivate their own discerment. In this paper, I state the effectiveness oftaxonomictraining in the education of the natural science and describe Aristotles classifcation of animal kingdom.
Although a handful of soil or organic debris appears inert to the unaided eye, it contains millions of populations oftiny life forms offungiand bacteria. Current scientific textbooks for Japanese high school students only explain them as decomposers in ecosystems. However, the process ofthe decomposition is, in fact, a little bitcomplicated, because a large numbers ofbacteria are eaten by microscopic animals, such as nematodes, rotifers and amoebae. Moreover, mostofthem are parasitized by certain species ofcarnivorous fungi.
Japanese high school students must learn the real microscopic ecosystems in soiland understand the carnivorous fungiplaying an important role in decomposition oforganic debris there. The key in this paper may be very helpful to identify the carnivorous fungifound by high school students in their laboratory work.