1. Characteristics and Needs of Living Things

2. SOLs Unit Overview Understanding Abiotic and Biotic Factors
6 Things biotic factors have…
4 Abiotic factors living things need…
Know: Students will be able to explain the difference between abiotic and biotic factors
Student will be able to determine differences and examples of characteristics of biotic factors
Students will be able to classify specific examples of characteristics of living things.
Students will explain how abiotic factors affect biotic factors.
How: Students will listen, discuss, and write about the categories of 6 characteristics and 4 abiotic factors.
Show: 80% accuracy

3. Biotic Factors—things that are alive
Characteristics—describe living things
Let’s begin with reviewing some vocabulary from 6th grade. Living things are considered to be biotic factors. These are things that are alive. When we talk about living things we describe their characteristics. Remember things that are alive are all plants, animals, and even bacteria.

4. Abiotic Factor—things that are not alive
Properties-describe things not alive
Abiotic factors are the opposite of biotic factors. Theses things are not alive, but are essential for living things to survive. Without abiotic factors living things would die.

5. Organism—a biotic factor that can carry out all functions of life

6. All biotic factors (living things) have 6 characteristics…
We use these characteristics to evaluate things and determine if they are alive or not

7. All biotic factors have….
Cell—the basic unit of life
Cells
First, all biotic factors have cells. A cell is the basic unit of all life. Some organisms are very simple and made of one cell. These one celled organisms are unicellular. Others are more complex and are multicellular meaning they have many cells.
Unicellular-
one cell
Multicellular-
many cells

8. All biotic factors have…
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
Inside all cells is DNA. DNA is has the directions to make new cells.
All biotic factors have DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid. This DNA is located within each cell and has the directions to make new cells.

9. Reproduce All biotic factors…
Sexual Reproduction—organism has 2 parents; a male (boy) and female (girl)
All biotic factors reproduce to make more. There are two types of reproduction. Asexual reproduction only requires one parent. Sexual reproduction requires two parents to create a new organism.
Asexual Reproduction—organism has 1 parent

10. Grow and Develop All biotic factors….
To Grow—get bigger and with multicellular organisms add cells
All biotic factors grow and develop. Growing, meaning getting bigger and possibly adding more cells. Developing meaning each organism changes as it grows. Remember, biotic factors are not just animals, but also include things like plants as well as insects.
To Develop—change as an organism grows

11. Respond to change All biotic factors… Respond to change has two parts:
Sunflowers Respond To the Movement of the Sun
Ellen Scares Andy
Pupils dilation
Respond to change
Stimuli—something that happens 1st
Respond to change has two parts:
All biotic factors respond and change to their environment. Respond to change has two important parts. First, there needs to be a stimulus—something that happens. In English class, you might know this as the cause. When a stimulus happens, the organism will respond or react. In English, you may know this as the effect. Stimuli and Response; Cause and Effect. Click on the video links above to see how sunflowers respond to the movement of the sun and how Ellen scares her producer Andy. Which is the stimulus? Which is the response?
Response—what happens; happens 2nd

12. An important part of respond to change…
Homeostasis—maintaining(keeping) a stable internal environment
Homeostasis Explained
One important part of respond to change is homeostasis. Homeostasis is an organism maintaining or keeping a stable internal environment. A good analogy is your house. Summer or winter, you are most comfortable when the temperature is about 68 degrees. If it gets colder outside, you turn on the heat inside to make sure the temperature stays at or close to 68. If is hot outside, you put on the air conditioner to cool down the inside of the house. One of many examples of homeostasis is your internal body temperature that stays at or around 98.6 degrees. If you body on the inside gets hotter than you will sweat—letting heat out. And we all know this one because we go to PE. If your body temperature goes lower than that, your body tells your brain to go get a sweatshirt or coat. However, if that doesn’t work, your body will begin to shiver. Shivering helps all your cells move to generate or make more heat. Click on the link Homeostasis explained to learn more.

13. Use Energy All biotic factors… Food Chemical Energy Vitamins Minerals
Fats
sugars
Measured in Calories
If an organism does not make its own food, then it must get it from outside.
All biotic factors use energy. Every biotic factor needs to take food and turn it into chemical energy. Some examples of chemical energy include vitamins, minerals, fats, and sugars. The big difference in using energy is where the energy comes from. With plants, which are green, they take energy from the sun to make their own food. Organisms like plants that make their own food are called producers because they produce or make their own food. Organism who cannot take in sunlight to make food must eat or consume food from the outside. These organisms are called consumers.
Plants make their own food and use it

14. An important part of using energy is…
Metabolism—
Organisms taking food
(from outside or making
it) and turning into energy that is used for exercise, eating, breathing, etc.
An important part of using energy is metabolism. Organism, both producers and consumers, need to use the chemical energy that they now have in the body. This using of the energy is metabolism. Organisms’ metabolism help them have energy to eat, sleep, breath, and even grow and develop. So here’s a question, if an organism has a high metabolism like a mouse, does it have to eat a lot or a little? Or how about a sloth, who moves the least out of all living things—do you think it has a high or low metabolism?

15. Excell Words Abiotic Biotic Factor To respond Stimulus Characteristic
Property
organism
To maintain