How Living Things Function Part I

Five Basic Life Functions

Anticipatory Set
Directions: Fill in the chart with the examples for each of the basic life
functions for both humans and plants. Try to do your best and do not
peek ahead.

1. oxygen is released
2. get new school clothes because youve grown your old ones
3. covering your ears during a fire drill
4. flowers bloom
5. eat lunch so you can pay attention in your afternoon classes
6. take bathroom breaks
7. photosynthesis using sunlight to make food
8. have babies
9. seeds
10. roots grow towards a source of water
5 basic life Functions Humans Plants
Grow and develop
Use energy by eating or
making food
Reproduce
Respond to the
environment
Get rid of wastes
The Five Basic Life Functions
In order to survive, animals need air, water, food, and shelter (protection
from predators and the environment); plants need air, water, nutrients, and light.
Every organism has its own way of making sure its basic needs are met. It is
important that young children be given the opportunity to recognize these needs by
observing and then describing the natural world.

What Do Animals Eat?
No matter what the activity, everything an animal does requires energy.
Giraffes need energy to run; monkeys need energy to climb; children need energy
to play. But where does all of this energy come from? All animals acquire energy
from the food they eat. Depending on the type of animal, this food may consist of
plants, animals, or a combination of both.
Animals that eat only plants are called herbivores. Most herbivores, including
the giraffe, macaw, ground squirrel, and elephant in this video segment, eat a wide
variety of plants and plant parts. Some herbivores, however, are very particular
about the plant matter they eat. Wild pandas have evolved to eat nothing but
bamboo plants -- a food that is plentiful where they live but not particularly
nutritious for bears. Because of their inefficiency digesting plant material pandas
need to eat a lot. Adult pandas spend 10 to 12 hours each day eating and consume
about 40 pounds of food during that time.
Animals that eat only other animals are called carnivores. Polar bears, sharks,
woodpeckers, and anteaters are all carnivores. Like herbivores, however,
carnivores may generalize and eat a wide variety of animals, or specialize and eat
only one type. Bald eagles, for example, are not very particular about the type of
meat they eat. They eat road-killed animals or the occasional rabbit plucked from
a field, fish they've caught fresh or rotting fish on the bank of a river. They are
even known to scavenge for food in city dumps. In contrast, anteaters are highly
specialized creatures. These animals eat little else besides ants and termites, and
their sticky tongue and powerful front legs (for tearing into insect mounds) are
perfectly adapted for doing just that.
Omnivores are the least choosy about what they eat. These animals, which
include raccoons, opossums, and black and grizzly bears, eat both plants and
animals, and often eat a wide variety of each. A typical grizzly bear, for example,
will eat just about anything it can catch and get its mouth around. Grizzlies are
known to kill their own food, including deer, but will also scavenge the carcasses of
dead animals. They also eat fish, crustaceans, amphibians, small mammals,
insects, berries, tree buds, and grass.

Watch Video: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.colt.eat/
what-do-animals-eat/

Answer Discussion Questions (TR Guide)
Beaver
The beaver is the largest rodent in North America. One of the most notable
traits of this species, however, is not its size but its ability to transform its
environment to suit itself. Most animals have at least some effect on the
environment around them. Spiders weave webs to catch passing insects.
Woodpeckers chip cavities in the trunks of trees to build their nests. But few
animals (except for humans) have as much of an impact on their environment as
the beaver does. In fact, a single family of beavers can in a matter of weeks turn a
small, rushing stream into acres of deep, still, interconnected ponds, creating a
wetland that would otherwise not exist.
Besides humans, beavers are the only species on earth that know how to
construct dams. Scientists often refer to beavers as the engineers of the animal
world. But unlike humans, who must be taught how to design and build dams,
beavers know instinctively how to interweave sticks to create a strong and durable
structure and how to seal a dam with mud to make it impermeable to water. They
are born knowing how, just as birds know how to sing songs or build nests without
ever having done so.
A beaver's work is critical to the survival of its family. The deep ponds that
beaver dams create offer refuge from predators and from the freezing
temperatures of winter. As long as a beaver dam is tall enough and the resulting
pond deep enough, a family of beavers will have underwater access to food
throughout the winter.
Perhaps more importantly, beaver dams and ponds provide habitat that
wouldn't otherwise exist for many other species. Ducks, geese, herons, turtles, and
frogs are just a few of the species that benefit from the deep and wide waterways
that beavers create. Unfortunately, this is where the dam-building
accomplishments of beavers and humans diverge. While small ponds constructed by
humans can be just as beneficial as a beaver pond, huge dams, including the
Hoover Dam pictured in the video, serve more often to flood vital habitat than to
create it. Dams as large as this create incredibly deep reservoirs that lack the
diversity and richness of the ecosystems created by beavers.

Watch the video: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/
tdc02.sci.life.colt.beaver/beavers/

Answer Discussion Questions (TR Guide)
Photosynthesis
It's not surprising that early scientists hypothesized that plants ate dirt. They
didn't know, as we now do, how energy-rich sunlight is. Still, it seems remarkable
that plants have evolved photosynthesis--the ability to harness the sun's energy to
produce their own food.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants transform water and carbon
dioxide (a gas that's plentiful in the air) into carbohydrates (sugars and starches),
using the energy of sunlight. While sunlight provides the energy needed to drive
this reaction, a chemical in the leaves of plants makes the reaction possible. That
chemical is a green pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is found inside the
photosynthetic cells of plants, attached to the membranes of small, round
structures called chloroplasts. Chlorophyll absorbs light in the red and blue-violet
portions of the visible spectrum, and reflects the green portion of the spectrum;
this is what gives chlorophyll its characteristic green color.
As remarkable as photosynthesis is, the process is not very efficient. Studies
show that prairie grasses in the western United States are some of the most
efficient plants at harnessing the sun's energy, but even they capture little more
than about 3 percent of the energy that reaches the prairie surface. The rest of
that energy is reflected away, absorbed by humidity in the air or by the ground, or
simply lost in myriad other ways before the plants can use it.
One of the most critical factors influencing the efficiency of photosynthesis is
the amount (intensity and duration) of light that hits a leaf. Generally, the more
light that strikes a leaf, the greater the rate of photosynthesis in that leaf. For
example, a leaf that is exposed to direct sunlight will photosynthesize at the
highest rate, while a leaf directly beneath it and in its shadow will photosynthesize
at a much lower rate. Because of this, many plants have evolved leaf and branch
structures that minimize overlap and shading, and thus maximize the plant's overall
rate of photosynthesis.

Watch video: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/
tdc02.sci.life.stru.photosynth/photosynthesis/
Going Deeper: Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and a few types of single-celled
organisms use energy from the sun to transform carbon dioxide and water into a
storable form of energy: glucose. One of the most important and impressive
aspects of this relatively simple process is that it is responsible for feedingeither
directly or indirectlynearly all life forms on Earth. Plants, of course, use some of
their own stored energy to support their life processes. First and foremost, the
energy from photosynthesis is used by plants for growth and reproduction. Animals,
however, evolved long ago to take advantage of the energy that plants store in
their tissues. The majority of animals, including humans, rely on the carbohydrates
found in plant roots, stems, leaves, and fruits as their primary source of energy.
Even animals that eat only meat benefit from plants indirectly. Animals also store
energy in their tissues. Thus, the energy a plant-eater acquires when it consumes a
plant can be transferred to an animal when it consumes the plant-eater.
The starting point for this transfer of energy is photosynthesis, and the most
critical factor in photosynthesis is light. Plants can't produce glucose and other
carbohydrates without light, nor can most plants live for more than a few days
without at least some light. Of course most plants do survive and flourish even
though they undergo several hours of darkness every 24 hours.
To get through the night, most plants reverse the photosynthetic process for a
time and, like air-breathing animals, respire, or burn carbohydrates and oxygen
while producing carbon dioxide and water. Even during the day most plants
photosynthesize and respire simultaneously, although at these times the rate of
photosynthesis is much higher than the rate of respiration. The carbon dioxide
produced during respiration is immediately used in photosynthesis and excess
oxygen is released into the environment.

Interact: http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/assets/swf/1/photosynthesis/
photosynthesis.swf
Teachers Guide

* Complete the Anticipatory Set.
Have them think about the five basic life functions and what they could mean.
Allow the student to complete independently.
They will return to correct it at the end of the lesson.

* Have the student read the text and then watch the video. Answer discussion
questions.

* Discussion Questions: Have the student answer verbally and prompt or scaffold to
guide the student in the right direction.

__________________________
What Do Animals Eat?
What are some similarities and differences in how these animals eat?
What did you find particularly interesting about how these animals eat?
Which animal eats most like the way you eat?

Beaver
In what ways is the beaver adapted to its environment?
Beaver dams change the landscape by blocking the flow of water and creating large
pools behind them. How might this help other plants and animals? How might it
harm other plants and animals?

Photosynthesis
Do you think that the factory is a good analogy for the process of photosynthesis in
plants?
Why did von Helmont think that plants got their nourishment from soil?
Why did he eliminate soil as a source of nourishment and focus on water?
What did he measure to find out if the willow plant got its nourishment from soil?
What do you think von Helmont concluded when he measured the change in weight
of the plant and the soil?
_________________________


Have students bring their anticipatory worksheet to school on Wednesday to
complete part II of this lesson. As well as a set of crayons or colored pencils.