1. Today’s Agenda… 4-11 Bellringer: Moon Phases Notes on Living Things
Assignment

2. Living Things...
Study Pack #1
April 11, 2012

3. The Characteristics of Living Things
Cellular Organization
Contain similar chemicals
Use energy
Grow and develop
Respond to their surroundings
Reproduce

4. Cellular Organization
All organisms are made of small building blocks called cells
Cells are very small – so small you need a microscope to see them

5. Cellular Organization
Organisms may contain one cell or many
Unicellular – single-celled organisms like bacteria
Multicellular – composed of many cells each with special jobs

6. Contain Similar Chemicals
The cells of living things contain many chemicals
Water
Carbohydrates for energy
Lipids and proteins for building materials
Nucleic acids for chemical instructions

7. Energy Use Your cells constantly use energy to do certain jobs
For example:
Your eye and brain cells are busy as you read
Your stomach and intestine cells are digesting food
Your blood cells are moving chemicals around your body

8. Growth and Development
Energy is used for an organism to become more complex over time
This is development
Organisms use energy to create new cells
Other objects may grow and change over time but they do not become more complex

9. Response to Surroundings
A change in an organism’s environment that causes it to react is called a stimulus
Stimuli include changes in:
Temperature
Light
Sound
Others

10. Response to Surroundings
Response – an action or change in behavior
For example : Consider your response to the stimulus of a loud noise
Non-living things such as rocks do not react to such stimuli

11. Reproduction To produce offspring similar to the parent
Sexual Reproduction
Asexual Reproduction

12. The Needs of Living Things
Is it odd to think that you, a squirrel, and tree all basically need the same things?
The needs of living things include:
Energy
Water
Living Space
Stable Internal Conditions

13. Energy Where do you get your energy?
Organisms use food as their energy source
Organisms differ in how they get their energy

14. Energy
For example: Plants capture the sun’s energy and use it along with other materials to make their own food
Autotrophs are organisms that make their own food
auto means “self”
troph means “feeder”
For example: plants

15. Energy Heterotrophs are organism that cannot make their own food
Hetero means “other”
For example: humans
We also get our energy from the sun, but indirectly
We consume autotrophs (plants) or we consumer other heterotrophs that consume autotrophs (cows)

16. Water
Organisms need water to get chemicals from their surrounding, digest foods, grow, move substances around the body, and reproduce
Water makes up 92% of your blood which carries oxygen and food to your cells
Cells also contain water that chemicals are dissolved in

17. Living Space
All organisms need a place to get food and water and find shelter
Sometimes organisms must compete for this space

18. Stable Internal Conditions
Because their outside environments can constantly change, organisms must be able to keep environments inside their bodies constant

19. Stable Internal Conditions
The ability to keep stable internal conditions even though surroundings are constantly changing is called homeostasis
For example, the way your body maintains a certain temperature