This chapter explains the key features of living beings that distinguish them from non-living things. All living creatures show growth, movement, respiration, nutrition, and excretion, which are essential for survival. They also have the ability to respond to stimuli, such as reacting to heat, light, or touch, and can reproduce to produce offspring of their own kind. Living beings develop special adaptations that help them survive in their environment, and each has a definite life span. The chapter highlights differences between plants and animals in terms of movement, nutrition, and habitat adaptations, while emphasizing that these life processes are absent in non-living things.
Key Points
All living creatures share certain basic characteristics that distinguish them from non-living things.
Main characteristics of living beings:
– Growth: Living things grow in size and shape naturally (e.g., plants grow taller, humans grow from babies to adults).
– Movement: All living beings show movement; animals move from place to place, plants show movement in parts (e.g., sunflower facing the sun).
– Respiration: Living organisms take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide to release energy.
– Nutrition: All living things need food for energy and growth.
– Excretion: Removal of waste materials from the body (e.g., humans excrete urine and sweat).
– Response to Stimuli: Living beings respond to changes in surroundings (e.g., withdrawing hand from a hot surface, touch-me-not plant closing leaves).
– Reproduction: Living beings produce their own kind (offspring).
– Adaptation: Adjusting to environment for survival (e.g., fish have gills to breathe in water).
– Life Span: Every living thing has a definite period of life.Non-living things do not grow, reproduce, or respond to stimuli on their own.
Plants and animals differ in their mode of nutrition, movement, and habitat adaptations.
👉 👉All living beings are special and interconnected. Understanding their characteristics helps us respect and care for every form of life on Earth.