This document discusses the key characteristics of living things and methods for classifying organisms. It covers the following main points: 1. All living things share characteristics of organization, growth, reproduction, response to stimuli, homeostasis, and use of energy. The basic unit of structure and function is the cell. 2. Organisms are classified based on evolutionary relationships and grouped into domains, kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species. The scientific name uses binomial nomenclature of genus and species. 3. Microscopes, including light microscopes and electron microscopes, are important tools used to study microscopic organisms and cellular structure.

1. Chapter 1
Classifying and Exploring
Life

2. All things can be characterized as either LIVING or NON-
LIVING
Abiotic- “without life”, non-living
Biotic- Living
Characteristics of all living things:
They are organized
They grow and develop
They reproduce
They respond
They maintain homeostasis
They use energy

3. Organization
Cell- the basic unit of structure and function of a living
organism.
Organisms are either:
Unicellular- made of one cell that does all the work to maintain
life.
Multicellular- composed of many cells. This organism has
specialized cells each doing a specific job in order to keep the
organism alive.

4. Growth and Development
Growth:
For unicellular organisms is just increase in size of
the organism
For multicellular organisms is increase in
NUMBER of specialized cells.
Development- Changes that occur throughout the lifetime of
the organism.

5. Reproduction
Process of making more organisms.
ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION- One
parent. Examples are budding, fission and
regeneration.
SEXUAL REPRODUCTION- Two parents.

6. Respond to Stimuli
Stimulus- Anything that causes a change in an organism.
Response ( NOT REACTION)- what an organism does
when a stimulus is present.
Two Types of Stimuli:
Internal – changes within an organism
External- Changes in environment around organism.

7. Homeostasis
The ability to maintain stable internal
environment to ensure the organisms ability to
function.

8. Use Energy
Ultimate source of all energy is the SUN. Plants use energy
from the sun (photosynthesis) to grow, animals and people
eat the plants to get energy. So directly or indirectly,
everything gets energy from the sun.
KNOW Figure 15
Food chain- one pathway of energy transfer
Food Web- multiple pathways of energy transfer

9. LESSON 2
Classification
Aristotle was the first to classify organisms. He
classified organisms into two groups- PLANTS
or ANIMALS.
Linnaeus grouped based on similar structures
and put them into one of two KINGDOMS.
Whittaker- developed the Linnaeus system into
5 Kingdoms.
Current classification systems are called
Systematics.

10. Systematics
Uses all known information to classify:
Cell type (unicellular, multicellular)
How food/energy is obtained
Features and how they are used
Ancestry (Phylogeny)
Molecular make up

11. Changes to Classification
Organisms are now classified into
DOMAINS and then broken into 6
Kingdoms (not 5).
Three Domains- Bacteria, Archea, Eukarya

12. Order of Classification
Domain
Kingdom (start here)
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
KNOW ORDER. Here is a way to remember-
King Phillip Came Over For Great Spaghetti.

13. Binomial Nomenclature
A two-name naming system that is used today.
Developed by Linnaeus. Normally the Latin
names. It consists of GENUS AND SPECIES.
Here is the reason behind this naming system. If an
organism has genus and species in common then all
of the higher classification order is similar too. For
example- the more of the classification order they
have the same, the more similar they are. So if the
smallest groupings are the same, the organism are
the same.
Species- must be able to produce fertile young

14. Writing the Scientific Name
(Binomial Nomenclature)
This is written (notice caps and lower case)
Written in italics with the first word in the name
begiining with a capital letter and the second word
beginning with a lower case letter.
Felis domesticus – the name for the house cat.
Felis- genus and domesticus is the species. All
cats can not produce fertile young (example
lion and house cat) so species is SPECIFIC
and must be able to produce fertile young.

15. A Scientific Name Helps to….
1. Help avoid mistakes- the name is worldwide
and understood and used for the same
organism. So this reduces mistakes.
2. Group organisms with similar evolutionary
history
3. Give descriptive information about the
species.
4. Organize information about the species
quickly and accurately.

16. Tools Used in Identifying
Organisms
Field Guide- a book with information
and illustrations about the organism.
Dichotomous Key-detailed list of
identifying characteristics arranged in
steps of two that lead to the organism
name.
Cladogram- branched diagram that shows
relationships among organisms.

17. Lesson 3
Microscopes
The # of microscopic organisms outnumber the amount of
visible organisms
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch fabric merchant made a
microscope out of a small bead. He could see things in pond
water that no one knew existed

18. Microscope Types
Two main types of microscopes- Light and Electron
Light-Simple or compound?
Simple-one lens and compound has more than one
lens. A compound microscope has an eye piece and
an objective lens
To determine magnification : Eye piece
magnification X objective lens

19. Electron Microscopes
Instead of using light, these use a magnetic
field in a vacuum to direct beams of electrons.
SEM- scanning electron microscope- produces a
3D image but only the surface can be seen.
Tem-transmission electron microscope-
produces a 2D image of a thinly sliced specimen