Characteristics of Living
Things
MRS FERG
• Movement
• Respiration
• Sensitivity
•
•
•
•
Feeding
Excretion
Reproduction
Growth
Plant Kingdom
Animal
Kingdom
Movement
the ability of an organism to
change position
• Some organisms can move the entire body e.g. singlecelled organisms like Amoeba
• Some organisms can move part of the body e.g. plants
• Some organisms can move both
their entire body, and each section of the body
eg insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals
• Most organisms move towards things they need and
away from things that harm them
Respiration is the release of energy from food
• Glucose in the food is broken down inside cells,
and energy is released
• Most organisms use oxygen for this process – so
it is called aerobic respiration
Sensitivity/Response is the ability of an
organism to gather information and respond to it
• Some of the things that cause living organisms to
respond are light, sound, touch, chemicals,
gravity…e.g. roots grow downwards in response
to gravity, shoots grow towards light
• Both plants and animals use their sense of touch
when climbing
• Predators use sound and smell to hunt for prey
Feeding/Nutrition means obtaining food
• All living organisms need food as a source of
energy
• Plants can make their own food using energy
from the sun (photosynthesis)
• Animals need to find an external source of food
Excretion is the removal of toxic chemical substances
made in the body
• toxic substances are poisonous and
may harm cells if not removed
• examples of toxic substances are
carbon dioxide and urea
NH3
Reproduction means producing
organisms of the species
Scientists have a
morename for the
“children” of all living
organisms – they say
OFFSPRING
• Some organisms reproduce from one
parent only – this is called ASEXUAL
reproduction
• Other organisms reproduce by combining
one cell from a male with one cell from a
female – this is called SEXUAL
reproduction
Growth the development of an organism into
an adult
• For micro-organisms, this means their cell
grows to full size before reproducing
• For multi-celled organisms, this means that cells
divide, organs grow in size, and systems
develop maturity