1. What does it mean to be alive?
Chapter 1
The Big Picture!
What does it mean to be alive?

2. Living things are organized
Example:
Atoms Molecules Organelles Cells
Tissues Organs Organ systems
Organisms Populations Communities
Ecosystems Biomes Biosphere

3. Eukaryotic Cell Structure

4. It takes energy to maintain this
Organization (Homeostasis)

5. To obtain this energy, organisms
perform what is known as Metabolism:
the building up and breaking down of
materials in an organism
Part of this metabolism is Respiration
And it all starts with Photosynthesis

6. Characteristics of Life:

7. 1. Order
Living things are highly organized in structure and function.
Analyzing a biological structure gives us clues about what it does and how it works
Structure and Function are related at all levels (organelle, cell, tissue etc.)

8. 2. Reproduction
Organisms reproduce their own kind.
Life on Earth uses the nucleic acid and code for Heritable Information.

9. 3. Growth & Development
Organisms increase in size and complexity.
Growth - increase in size.
Development - increase in complexity.
Life - grows by internal changes.

10. 4. Energy Processing
Organisms take in energy and transform it to do work.
Organisms are “open” systems, they must continually take in energy.

11. 5. Response To Environment
Organisms respond to changes or stimuli in their environment.
The speed of the response may be “fast” or “slow”.

12. 6. Homeostasis (Regulation)
Organisms maintain their internal environment within tolerable limits.
“homeo” = same
“stasis” = state

13. 7. Evolutionary Adaptation
Organisms change over time as they adapt to their environment.
Organisms must adapt, move, or die!

14. Others
8. The Cell Is the “basic unit” of Life.
9. Organisms Die.

15. Humans attempt to understand the
world around us.
In order to do this, we always approach
our studies in the same way (the
scientific method), and organize our
results (taxonomy, classification)

16. 3 domains
6 kingdoms

19. Word roots
bio- :life (biology- study of life)
eu- :true (eukaryotic cell- has a true
nucleus)
-ell :small (organelle- small, formed
body with a particular
function found in cells)
pro- :before
karyo- : nucleus (prokaryotic cell- has
no nucleus)