Understanding the Relative Nature of Categorizing Characters on a Phylogenetic Tree as Synapomorphies or Plesiomorphies

This activity is a worksheet designed to help students understand the relative nature of synapomorphies and plesiomorphies with respect to monophyletic groups. The worksheet has various phylogenetic trees without characters. Students get a prompt that describes the character with respect to the monophyletic groups and students then place the character on to the tree. As is, this activity is designed for the in-person classroom, but it could be easily adapted into an online activity via Google Slides.