Download Living Things

Living or Not???
Characteristics of living things
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Movement
Response (to a stimulus)
Growth
Reproduction
Adaptation
Metabolism (all changes where energy is
released)
A good acronym!!
M
R
G
R
A
M
Do you need to have all 6 characteristics??
• Yes!!
• In order to be a living organism, you need
to be able to do all 6 things.
Movement
• Plants move toward the light
• Some flowers close their petals at night
• The Venus Flytrap plant snaps shut when
two of its sensitive hairs are touched at the
same time.
Response/Stimulus
All living organisms can
respond to a stimulus:
Response = what was done
in response to the stimulus
Ivan Pavlov found that
you could train dogs to
salivate when they heard
a bell!
Stimulus = the thing that was
done to initiate the response
Example: Plant responds to the
stimulus of touch:
Mimosa pudica responds to touch
Metabolism
is a set of chemical reactions that
occur in living organisms to
maintain life
Adaptation
Any characteristic that makes an organism better
able to survive in its surroundings.
EX: a dog’s coat keeps him warm in the winter
Growth
• All organism must grow
reproduction
• to be able, at some point in its life cycle, to
produce more offspring.
Cells
• All living things are made up of cells
• Robert Hooke (1665) first discovered cells by looking at
cork cells through a microscope.
The Cell Theory
1853
• All organisms are made up of one or more
cells
• Cells are the basic units of structure and
function in all organisms
• All cells come from cells that already exist
How are living things organized??
• Living things are
organized into one of
6 kingdoms
• A kingdom is a large
group that shares
some BASIC
characteristics
Cells
Prokaryotic
pro=before
karyote=nucleus
• No membrane around
nucleus
• Ex: bacteria
Eukaryotic
• Have a membrane
around the nucleus
Ex: almost everything
except bacteria