1. The Characteristics of Life

2. Studying Life Biology How can you describe a living thing?
“The Study of Life”
Uses the scientific method to study living things
How can you describe a living thing?

3. What Makes Something Alive
Living things share the following 8 characteristics:
Organization and cells
Reproduce
Based on a universal genetic code
Grow and develop
Metabolism
Respond to environment
Homeostasis
Evolution

4. 1. Organization and cells
High degree of order within internal/external parts
Made of 1 (unicellular) or many (multicellular) cells

5. 2. Living Things Reproduce
Reproduction
Sexual Reproduction
2 living things produce a new living thing
Asexual Reproduction
Splitting results in identical new organisms
Hereditary information passed to offspring via DNA

8. 3. Living Things Grow and Develop
Growth
Division and enlargement of cells
Development
Organism becomes a mature adult
Multicellular specialization/differentiation

9. Living things need energy to survive
4. Metabolism
Living things need energy to survive
They may capture or collect resources they can use to live
They man break down and digest these resources into usable forms

10. 5. Respond to Environment
A living thing detects a stimulus from its environment
A stimulus is a signal from the environment to which a living thing responds
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13. Conditions outside a living thing’s body may change dramatically
6. Homeostasis
Conditions outside a living thing’s body may change dramatically
Conditions inside a living thing’s body mostly need to be kept constant
This constant state is called homeostasis
Keeping cool via sweat
Cells burning fuel to create heat
Birds fluffing feathers to keep warm

14. Persistence of adaptations by means of natural selection
7. Evolution
Over many generations, the traits present in a group of living things change
Persistence of adaptations by means of natural selection