Students are often asked to carry out research on a particular topic. In the course of their research they may be required to find information in a public library and may benefit from understanding the Dewey Decimal System cataloguing system. It was created by Melvil Dewey, a librarian who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This unit takes pupils step by step through the system, beginning with the broad classification into ten major areas:

  
and then exploring the idea of dividing these areas of knowledge into finer and finer divisions:

• 523.1 The universe; space, galaxies, quasars
• 523.2 Solar system
• 523.3 Moon
• 523.4 Planets
• 523.5 Meteoroids, solar wind, zodiacal light
• 523.6 Comets
• 523.7 Sun
• 523.8 Stars
• 523.9 Satellites and rings; eclipses, transits, occultations.
• While it is unlikely that most students (or even teachers) will need to know this system in details, it does help students to understand the links between categories and subcategories and indicates broadly in which section a book might be located.

Extension

• Do the unit as a whole-class activity and encourage students to recognise the links between categories.