Characteristics & classification of life
What/who are
scientisits?
What is
scientific
method?
the
What are the
characteristics
of life?
**life
different,
is
but
 Scientist= a curious person who
drives to find the answer to questions
about everything!
 Scientia= Latin for knowledge
(science,
scientist(s),
scientific,
scientifically, sciencey, sciencish)
 Scientific
method=
steps
to
“conducting careful investigations”
1) State the situation/question
2) Hypothesis-what you think the
answer is
3) Research
info. about the
question-data collection
4) Conduct experiment- test the
hypothesis-collect data
5) Analyze data6) Conclusion- was the hypothesis
right or not?
7) Share the results- w/everyone!
 To be considered “living”, an object
MUST:
1) Need H2O
2) Need to eat-energy!
3) Move w/out help
4) Grow & develop over life span
5) Have to die-finite life span
the same!**
What is DNA?
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
Breathe-exchange of gases
Reproduce
Excrete wastes
Made out of cells-1 or lots++++
Respond to their environment
Made
of
the
same
basic
chemicals/compoundscarbohydrates, proteins, lipids,
H2O, nucleic acids (DNA)
12) Adapt to its environment-evolve
over time
13) Maintain
body
balance=homeostasis
14) Heal wounds that aren’t fatal
 nonliving= doesn’t have all living
characterisitcs
 dead= lived before, but now no
longer
 DNA=
DeoxyriboNucleic
Acid=
genetic material passed from parent
to
offspring
that
carries
info./controls who you are/what you
look like
 Shaped like a twisted ladder=double
helix…discovered by Drs. Watson &
Crick in 1953
 The sides are sugar & phosphate
How do we
classify living
things?
 4 nitrogen bases make the “rungs of
the ladder”…A&T and G&C
(diagram)
 Organisms are grouped with similar
organisms= living things
 Organisms are classified so they are
easier to study
 Organism are grouped according to
cell type, # of cells & how they get
food
 Organisms that make their own
food= autotroph plants or plant-like
 Organisms that hunt their food=
heterotroph animals or animal-like
**from broad to specific:**
1) DOMAIN: 3 based on cell type
 prokaryote= cells w/out a
nucleus…unicellular, VERY
simple organisms
 1)bacteria
 2)archaea
 eukaryote= cells w/ a nucleus
around their DNA
 3)eukarya
2) KINGDOM: 4 in eukarya domain
based on # of cells & how they get
food
What did I
learn from the
DVD,
“Classification
”
 protist/protista:
 plant/plantae
 fungi
 animal-animalia
3) PHYLUM:
 2 plant kingdom phyla
 9 animal kingdom phyla-8
invertebrate (no bones!) & 1
vertebrate
4) CLASS:
 3 vascular plant classes
 5 vertebrate classes
5) ORDER: 1+ orders per class
6) FAMILY: 1+ families per order
7) GENUS: 1+ genus per family
8) SPECIES: 1 distinct
organism…has babies that can
have babies…1+ species per genus
 3.5 million+ species discovered so far
 Aristotle did first classification
system
 Latin= language of classification
system b/c it is a dead language so it
can’t be changed
 Everywhere you go you see some
living thing
 Closely related species can mate but





What
is
binomial
nomenclature?







the babies are sterile-can’t have
babies
EX:
mule,
liger,
wholphin=hybrid animals
Classification is not a perfect scienceit’s fluid/changing
Cryptozoologist=finds new species
Carolus Linnaeus created the
modern classification system &
binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature= two names
for an organism
Taxon=category…taxonomy=putting
living
things
into
categoriesclassifying them
Binomial nomenclature= two names
for an organism
Are in Latin
1st word is the genus, 2nd word is the
species/specific epithet
BOTH words name a unique
organism, the species
1st word is capitalized, 2nd word is
not; in italics; 1st word can be an
intial
EX: Felis domesticus or
F.
domesticus is a house cat
AKA scientific name