Chapter 1, Plants and their Parts
Lesson 1, Classifying Living Things
Objectives:
Explore traits plants have in common.
Describe the characteristics of plants.
Compare plants to other organisms.
Vocabulary
Chlorophyll
Vascular
Nonvascular
Fungus
Protist
Bacterium
Main Idea:
All plants have common characteristics, such as the same parts and the ability to make food.
1. What do plants have in common?
a. Chlorophyll – a green chemical that allows plants to make food.
i. Allows plants to use the Sun’s energy to make food.
ii. To make their own food.
1. Plants need water, minerals from soil, carbon dioxide from air.
b. CELLS!
i. Plants are made up of many different kinds of cells.
ii. All plants have cells walls.
1. These walls keep the plant from falling over.
2. Cells of all plants work together to keep the plants alive.
3. Different kinds of cells do different kinds of jobs.
a. Each job contributes to the health and survival of the
plant.
i. Example, cells in leaves make the plant’s food.
ii. Cells in stems, branches, roots, and the trunk form
tubes through which the food or water is
moved/transported.
iii. Cells may form flowers, fruits, and seeds to allow
the plant to reproduce.
b. Cells are organized into tissues.
i. The tissues that carry water and minerals support
the plant.
4. PLANT CELLS versus ANIMAL CELLS
2. What are the major plant groups?
a. The science of finding patterns among living things is called classification.
i. Vascular – means, “composed of or containing vessels”
1. Plants that have vascular tissue
2. This tissue has tube-like cells that transports water
3. Vascular tissue is like the veins and arteries in a human body
ii. Nonvascular – plants that do not have this kind of tissue
1. Mosses, liverworts
Q2: What is the difference between vascular and nonvascular plants?
Vascular plants have tubes that run between the roots and leaves; nonvascular
plants do not.
3. The Plant Kingdom
a. Every living thing that has these characteristics belongs to the plant kingdom.
b. A kingdom is the largest subdivision of living things.
c. Plants have similarities, however they have many differences.
i. The main difference is vascular and nonvascular
ii. Under those two categories, plants have subdivisions.
iii. The second category under vascular is vascular seed plants and vascular
seedless plants.
iv. The smaller the group, the more closely related are the members.
4. What Makes Animals Different from Plants?
a. Animals cannot make their own food.
b. Animals can move from one place to another during their lives.
c. The first level of division in the animal kingdom is
i. Phyla Without Backbone = vertebrates
ii. Phyla With Backbone = invertebrates
5. What is a Fungus?
a. Fungus may be one celled or many celled.
b. Fungus/Fungi do not make their own food.
i. Instead, they absorb (take in) food from decaying dead organisms and
wastes from the environment.
c. Examples of fungus
i. Yeast helps bread to rise
ii. Sharp cheeses, blue cheese
iii. Athletes foot
iv. Mold in the bathroom
v. Some fungi are poisonous, some help fight diseases.
6. What is a Protist?
a. Many protists are microscopic living things, some are visible like seaweed and
algae.
b. Some protists make their own food, because they contain chlorophyll
c. Most protists live in water
d. Some are single cells that swim in water and hunt smaller living things.
e. All protists have a nucleus inside each cell. The nucleus is also surrounded by a
thin envelope called a membrane.
7. What are Bacteria?
a. These are the tiniest living things.
i. Some cause a lot of trouble, others are necessary for animals and plants
to survive.
ii. You can only see bacteria under a microscope.
iii. Each bacterium is a single cell without a nucleus.