Characteristics of Living Things

Unit 01
Characteristics and Classification of Living
By : Ms.Hariati
In this chapter, you will find out about:
❖ the characteristics of living things

❖ naming organisms using the binomial
system
❖ how living organisms are classified
❖ how to use dichotomous keys to identify
organisms.
Look at this Pictures :
Look at this Pictures :
Activity 1 : Watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_b73LX8I
Y
from the beginning until 40 second

Activity 2 :
1. Check your Google Classroom
2. Read : The Puzzle of Platypus
(6 minutes)
Discussions : Fact About Platypus
1. Mammals
2. Venom
3. Unique
4.Their beak like a duck
5. Lays eggs
6. feed their young on milk
7. has different chromosomes
1.1 - Characteristics of Living Things
1.1 - Characteristics of living things
► Biology is the study of living things, which are often called organisms. Living
organisms have seven features or characteristics which make them different
from objects that are not alive.
► The definitions of these characteristics are shown in the boxes below and on
the opposite page. You should learn these definitions now, but you will find out
much more about each of them later in your book.
Key Definition - Animals
movement - an action by an organism causing a change of position or place
respiration - the chemical reactions in cells that break down nutrient molecules and release
energy
sensitivity - the ability to detect and respond to changes in the environment
growth - a permanent increase in size
reproduction - the processes that make more of the same kind of organism excretion -
removal from organisms of toxic materials and substances in excess of requirements
nutrition - taking in of materials for energy, growth and development
1.1 - Characteristics of Living
Things
Growth - All organisms
begin small and get larger,
Movement - All organisms are able to move
to some extent. Most animals can move their
Sensitivity - All organisms
pick up information about
by the growth of their cells whole body from place to place, and plants changes in their environment,
and by adding new cells to can slowly move parts of themselves. and react to the changes.
their bodies.
◄ Figure 1.2 -
Characterist
ics of living
organisms.
Excretion - All Respiration - All
organisms produce organisms break
unwanted or toxic down glucose and
waste products as a other substances
result of their inside their cells, to
release energy that
metabolic reactions,
they can use.
and these must be
removed from the
body.
Reproduction - Organisms are able to Nutrition - Organisms take substances from
make new organisms of the same species their environment and use them to provide
as themselves. energy or materials to make new cells.
1.1 - Characteristics of Living
► In addition to these seven characteristics, living organisms have another feature in common. When we
Things
study living organisms under a microscope, we can see that they are all made of cells. These cells all
have:
❖ cytoplasm
❖ a cell membrane
❖ a chemical called DNA, making up their genetic material
❖ ribosomes, which are used for making proteins inside the cell
❖ enzymes that are used to help the cell to carry out anaerobic respiration.
► You can find out more about the structure of cells in Chapter 2.
Key Definition - Plants

movement - an action by an organism or part of an organism causing a change of position or place
respiration - the chemical reactions in cells that break down nutrient molecules and release energy for
metabolism
sensitivity - the ability to detect or sense stimuli in the internal or external environment and to make
appropriate responses
growth - a permanent increase in size and dry mass by an increase in cell number or cell size or both
excretion - removal from organisms of the waste products of metabolism (chemical reactions in cells
including respiration), toxic materials and substances in excess of requirements
nutrition - taking in of materials for energy, growth and development; plants require light, carbon dioxide,
water and ions; animals need organic compounds and ions and usually need water
1. CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING THINGS
Learning Objectives :
1. Students be able classified organisms into groups by the features that
they share.
2. Students be able to describe a species as a group of organisms that
can reproduce to produce fertile offspring
What do you think about Classification?
1.2 - Classification
Page 3
► Classification means putting things into groups. There are many possible ways in which we could group
living organisms. For example, we could put all the organisms with legs into one group, and all those
without legs into another. Or we could put all red organisms into one group, and all blue ones into
another. The first of these ideas would be much more useful to biologists than the second.
► The main reason for classifying living things is to make it easier to study them. For example, we put
humans, dogs, horses and mice into one group (the mammals) because they share certain features (for
example, having hair) that are not found in other groups. We think that all mammals share these
features because they have all descended from the same ancestor
► that lived long ago. The ancestor that they all share is called a common ancestor. The common ancestor
that gave rise to all the mammals lived more than 200 million years ago.
► We would therefore expect all mammals to have
bodies that have similar structures and that work in
similar ways. If we find a new animal that has hair
and suckles its young on milk, then we know that it
belongs in the mammal group. We will already
know a lot about it, even before we have studied it
at all.
Using DNA to help with classification Page 3
► In the past, the only ways that biologists

could decide which organisms were most
closely related to each other was to study the
structure of their bodies.
► They looked carefully at their morphology
(the overall form and shape of their bodies,
such as whether they had legs or wings) and
their anatomy (the detailed body structure,
which could be determined by dissection).
► We still use these methods of classification
today. But we now have new tools to help to
work out evolutionary relationships, and one
of the most powerful of these is the study of
DNA.
DNA and Classification
Page 3
Using DNA to help with classification
► DNA is the chemical from which our chromosomes
are made. It is the genetic material, passed on from
one generation to the next. You can read more
about its structure in Chapter 4, where you will find
out that each DNA molecule is made up of strings of
smaller molecules, containing four different bases.
These bases, called A, C, G and T, can be arranged
in any order.
► Biologists can compare the sequences of
bases in the DNA of organisms from two different
species. The more similar the base sequences, the
more closely related the species are to one another.
They have a more recent common ancestor than
species that have DNA base sequences that are
less similar.
► The similarities in sequences of amino acids in
proteins can be used in the same way. DNA and Classification
The classification system Page 4
► The first person to try to classify organisms in a

scientific way was a Swedish naturalist called
Linnaeus. He introduced his system of
classification in 1735.
► He divided all the different kinds of living things
into groups called species. He recognised 12
000 different species. Linnaeus’s species were
groups of organisms that shared the same
appearance and behaviour. We still use this
system today.
► Biologists do not always agree on exactly how
to define a species, but usually we say that
organisms belong to the same species if they
can breed together successfully, and the
offspring that they produce can also breed.
Watch this video :
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqxomJIBGcY
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq6faK3XHuM

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Unit 01

Characteristics and Classification of Living

❖ the characteristics of living things

from the beginning until 40 second

Key Definition - Plants

► In the past, the only ways that biologists

► The first person to try to classify organisms in a

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