1.1 What is Life?Lauren Gerlin

Date

Grade

Name

September 29th, 201411Th

Introducing Bertha and BertHello there! I am your

science teacher for this PowerPoint! I am going to teach you about the

Basics of Life.

My name is Bertha and my friend’s name is Bert. We are from the Science Galaxy

and we are excited to see you learn a lot of

Biology this year!

Some Things you Need to Know Beforehand• Nonliving objects may possess some

characteristics of living organisms• Cell is the basic unit of life• A membrane is a pliable sheet like

structure acting as a boundary, lining, or partition in an organism• A membrane separates the cell from its

surroundings, enclosing a huge variety of structures and chemicals in a fluid environment• This allows a staggering number of chemical

reactions to occur in the proper order, at the proper location and at the proper time so that the cell can maintain and reproduce itself

To start off we need to learn

some background information!

Up above me is a picture of a cell.

The Six Characteristics that Define Life1. Organisms acquire and use

materials and energy2. Organisms actively maintain

organized complexity3. Organisms perceive and respond

to stimuli4. Organisms grow5. Organisms reproduce6. Organisms, collectively, have the

capacity to evolve

SIX IS THE MAGIC

NUMBER!!!!

Organisms acquire and use materials and energy

• Obtain minerals, water and other simple chemical building blocks from air, water, soil and from the bodies of other living things

• Because life neither creates nor destroys matter, materials are continuously exchanged and recycled among organisms and their nonliving surroundings.

• The energy that sustains life comes from sunlight• Photosynthesis: certain organisms directly

capture and store solar energy• Trap and store energy for their own use, but

the energy stored in their bodies also powers all other forms of life, such as fungi and animals.• It is released back to the environment as

heat

Photosynthesis is really

important to remember!

Isn’t this exciting?!?!

Organisms Actively Maintain Organized Complexity• Organisms must use energy continuously to maintain

themselves.• They use energy to keep their organs war, so it can stay in

constant temperature• Sweat is one of the ways the body cools itself• Food warms our body

One example is when a

membrane constantly pumps some chemicals in

and others out

I love Biology!

Organisms Perceive and Respond to Stimuli• Organisms must perceive and

respond to their environments• Things use specialized cells to detect

light, temperature, sound, gravity, touch, chemicals and many other stimuli from their external and internal surroundings• Even bacteria can move toward

favorable conditions and away from harmful substances.

When the brain detects low levels of sugar in your blood, it causes your mouth to

water at the smell of food

Oh how I love

Biology!!!!!

Organisms Grow• Single-celled organisms such as

bacteria grow about double their original size, copy their genetic material, and then double their original size, copy their genetic material , and then divide in half to reproduce.• Individual cells can also

contribute to the growth of an organism by increasing in size, as occurs in muscle and fat cells in animals, and in food storage cells in plants

Animals and plants use a

similar process to produce more cells to bacteria

Organisms Reproduce• Reproduce in a verity of ways that

include dividing in half, producing seeds, bearing live young and laying eggs• Offspring inherit from their parents

the instructions for producing and maintaining their particular forms of life.• These instructions are carried in the

unique structure of the hereditary molecule deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA.

I love the topic of DNA!

It is so interesting!

Organisms, Collectively, Have the Capacity to Evolve

• Evolution: the process by which modern organisms have descended from earlier and different forms of life.• Population: a group of the same type of organism inhabiting the same area

I think this picture is so interesting!

Guess what!?!? WE ARE

FINISHED WITH THIS SECTION!

Scientific Method

Lauren Gerlin

Date

Grade

Name

September 29th, 201411Th

Bertha and BertHello there! I am

excited to teach you about the scientific

method and just the basics of science!

I hope you liked what we taught you in the first section of

this amazing PowerPoint!

What is Science?

• “It is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding”

What is science, Bertha?

That is a very good question! Let’s

look and see what the answer is!

Scientific Method

1.Observation2.Question3.Hypothesis4.Prediction5.Experiment6.Conclusion

Lets learn about these

six steps in the next few

slides!

I am going to use one example

throughout the next six slides

about the growth of tomatoes!

First Step: Observation

•consists of receiving knowledge of the outside world through our senses

My observation is that I notice that some

tomatoes are bigger than others and

wonder why

Second Step: Question

•a question that can be answered using experimentation and factual reasoning

My question is, Does the amount of sunlight

a tomato plant receives affect the size

of the tomatoes?

Third Step: Hypothesis

•is an idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation.

My Hypothesis is, I believe that the more

sunlight a tomato plant receives, the

larger the tomatoes will grow.

Fourth Step: Prediction

•is your specific belief about the scientific idea

My prediction is, Increasing the amount of sunlight tomato

plants in my experiment receive will cause an increase

in their size compared to identical plants that received the same care but less light.

Fifth Step: Experiment

•is an orderly procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, refuting, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis

My Experiment is, I get tomato seeds and I treat them exactly the same, but all the tomatoes get

different amount of times in the sunlight.

Sixth Step: Conclusion

•will summarize whether or not your science fair project results support or contradict your original hypothesis

My conclusion is a minimum of six to eight hours of full-sun

exposure daily for tomato will increase the size to the fullest it can be. If the plant receives less

than that amount of sunlight, the tomato will be smaller than they

would be with more sunlight

ACTIVITY TIME!!! You will have a bunch of colorful index cards

and you have to match them to the same one. You have to answer the question, if there is one, after picking two cards. The

cards DO NOT have to be the same color to be a match! HAVE FUN!

(after this I will give you a five question quiz)

Citations

Information:http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science2.htmlhttp://www.masteringbiology.com/site/login.htmlMrs. Ceppaglia’s PowerPoint

Pictures:http://www.how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com/scientist-cartoon.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesishttp://www.gatewaytoscience.org/2014/08/register-clubs/