Unit 1

The Science of Life

What is Biology?
The study of life
Biologists study how living things work, how they interact
with the environment, and how they change over time.
Characteristics of Life
Organization and cells made up of cells (the smallest unit of life)
Response to stimuli change in the internal or external environment
Homeostasis maintenance of internal environment
Metabolism transformation of energy from the environment
Growth and development grow in size and develop into an adult
Reproduction produce new organisms like themselves
Change over time populations evolve
Divisions of Life
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Ecology
A branch of biology that studies organisms interacting with
each other and with their environment.
Evolution
The process of inherited characteristics within populations
changing over generations.
Scientific Method
State the problem
Collect data
Invent a hypothesis
Experiment
Note Data
Conclusion
Educate others
Controlled Experiment
An experiment where only one variable is changed.

Independent variable variable that is manipulated
Dependent variable variable that changes in response to
the independent variable
Scientific Theory
When a set of related hypotheses is confirmed to be true
many times, and it can explain a great amount of data