Classwork: Characteristics of Living Things

Group number Team number Names

Instructions:

Part I
1. Get together with your team members. Assign one member to read the activity and write
the answers that all the members agreed on.

2. All of the team members will help to create a list of 7 questions that must be asked in
order to determine whether something is alive or not. Be sure to think about the 7
characteristics of living beings when you design your questions.

i) Are they organized?

ii) Does it reproduces?

iii) Do they respond to stimuli?

iv) Are they homeostatic?

v) Do they grow and develop?

vi) Do they adapt and evolve?

vii) Does they acquire materials and energy?

Part II
1. Use the seven questions that you just created to determine whether or not the following
things are living or nonliving. Be sure that when you answer each of the questions for
both things in the table below, you include some evidence as to whether that thing fulfills
that characteristic of life or not.
Example: a rock does not reproduce – this would be insufficient
A rock does not reproduce because more rocks are not produced from one “parent”
rock. A rock may break apart, but this is not offspring, only fragments of the original.
– this provides an explanation of why you think the rock does not reproduce.
 Hummingbird
i. Hummingbirds are organized by levels of
hierachchy, this a an animal and the are a
life so they have atoms and all
untilnorganisms.
Ii Hummingbirds are produced from one
parent hummingbird and they create a copy
of themselves, the bird has a DNA and that
allows organisms to produce.
iii. Hummingbirds can respond to stimuli
because they have an instinct, the stimuli
make them to look how to survive, for
example if they are hungry they can go to
search for food.
iv. Yes because they regulate themselves for
surviving. For example surviving from the
cold.
v. Hummingbirds can grow and develop
because they can increase their size, or their
number of cells. I can prove it because the
don’t die as when they were conceive.
vi. Yes, hummingbirds adapt and evolve
through the years, so they can keep
reproducing.
vii. Yes, hummingbirds eat so they receive
materials and this is called cellular
respiration.
Your conclusion is:
Hummingbirds are living things.
Thunderstorm
i. Thunderstorms are not organized because
they are not organized by the levels of
hierachchy, it is not a living thing.
Ii Thunderstorm cannot reproduce because
they aren’t living things. They don’t have a
DNA.
iii. Thunderstorms react by chemical
reactions they don’t act by stimuli.
iv. Thunderstorms do not act for themselves
therefore they don’t have the ability to
regulate
v. Thunderstorm can’t grow and develop
because they can’t increase her size or the
number of cells bye themselves.
vi. Thunderstorms don’t act by themselves
so they cant evolve, although their intensity
can change because of the environment.
Vii Thunderstorms do not have the
necessity to nature themselves because they
are not made of cells.
Your conclusion is:
Thunderstorms aren’t a life.