As a living creature, we are all members of an incredibly complex and often sophisticated group of organisms. As a group, humans perform a lot of tasks together to accomplish a common goal.
You and your family may share in certain chores while others help to make plans for what you are going to have for dinner. Each member contributes to a portion of the job.
If you expand this idea out you can see that your home is part of a neighborhood and the neighborhood is part of a bigger city. Each home and neighborhood will often do things to help those in the community.
The community then helps the state, which helps the nation, and that can branch out to doing good on an international level. This is the structure of the life that you and those you care about live in.
Each individual has a part to play as a human being. Some of us are teachers, doctors, farmers, construction workers, and even writers.
This variety brings the specialized skills of each person so that all can benefit from their work.
Imagine what the world would be like it everyone was a farmer or a doctor? Without diversity, the world couldn’t survive.
There wouldn’t be any scientists to make discoveries or inventors to create new technologies.
Our world is just a bigger picture of the world where cells exist.
Each living thing has cells that specialize in a particular job so that the cell can thrive, eat, get rid of waste, reproduce, and remain in a healthy condition. Cells are a lot like we humans and each has their own job to accomplish for survival of all.
Cells work together in the same way that people work together. In the world of cells those that group together with other cells are called tissues.
We learn about the many different types of life that exist on our plant, especially the differences between non-living and living things.
We can watch as living things create habitats and how they make changes to adapt to new environments. Both animals and plants have cells that are part of their bodies and make up organs that enable them to function and survive.
Cells, just like people, need to perform their tasks so that there is food to eat, waste eliminated, and growth through reproduction.
It makes sense to say that cells are a lot like people and people are a lot like cells because we can work individually or as a group to succeed. Without these actions, every species (including us) would go extinct.
Facts about the structure of Living Things
- Your cells are designed so that they don’t send the message to your body to produce a “flagella”. Think of what you would look like with a thin, whip-like tail!
- Biological classifications can be compared to the various sections of a library. There are main sections with subsections inside and then those are filled with all of the reading material.
- We classify life in 7 different classifications: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. For plants and animals we use two main kingdoms. Scientists also use four additional kingdoms including: bacteria, archaebacteria, fungi, and protozoa. An eighth classification is also sometimes used which is above the kingdom” and called the “Domain.”
- We are Homo sapiens. Here is an example of how science classifies us:
- Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: Homo sapiens - If you have to memorize classifications, here are some easy ways to remember them:
- A good way to remember lists is to make up a sentence using the first letters in a list. In Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species: K, P, C, O, F, G, S
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach. - Koalas Prefer Chocolate Or Fruit, Generally Speaking
- King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti
- Keeping Precious Creatures Organized For Grumpy Scientists
- Fungi are living microorganisms and can include such things as molds and yeasts. There are some fungi that cause diseases such as thrush, ringworm, and meningitis.
Facts about Biology
- A concussion can happen in a violent blow to the head or even if someone is shaken. They should be taken seriously as they can be dangerous. Concussions are rated in severity in a level from 1 to 3, with “3” being the worst.
- A virus is responsible for giving us the flu. Since the immune system becomes weakened it also allows a bacterial infection to take place.
- An epidemic is typically when large numbers of people within an area get a disease at the same time and then spread it. Some really bad epidemics in history have been malaria, Black Death, and smallpox.
- A pandemic is when an epidemic spreads across larger areas and even goes to other countries.
- Insulin is an important material for our survival. It’s a hormone that’s made in our pancreas and removes the sugar (known as glucose) from our blood that we don’t need. Our cells use the glucose that we do need for their energy.
- Diabetes is a malfunction of the ability of a pancreas to take care of the right amounts of glucose. Both children and adults can have diabetes.