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Living Things Characteristics Worksheet

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Living Things Characteristics Worksheet

A parcel sorting team has found several items that may have come from a habitat. Use evidence to decide what is living, what was once living and what has never been alive. Answer every question; explain your thinking where asked.

Sort the evidence

Scientists often look for several characteristics of life: taking in or using energy, growing and changing, responding to surroundings, reproducing, and producing waste. No single clue is enough on its own.

1.Hudson is sorting parcel-room finds. Which item is living now? Choose one and use a characteristic of life to support your choice.

A dry gum leaf
A smooth pebble
A small growing fern in a pot
A wooden ruler

2.Arjun finds a feather, a seed and a plastic button. Classify each as living now, once living, or never living.

3.Sienna says, “A car moves, so it must be living.” Is her reasoning sound? Explain why movement alone is not enough to identify life.

4.Complete the idea: A plant captures light energy to make its own food. This process is called .

5.Match each observation to the characteristic of life it best demonstrates: a seedling becomes taller; a person pulls a hand away from a hot surface; a bird lays eggs; an animal breathes out carbon dioxide.

Seedling becomes taller
Hand pulls away from heat
Bird lays eggs
Animal breathes out carbon dioxide

Reproduction
Growth
Waste removal
Response to a stimulus

How living things meet their needs

Living things need resources such as energy, water and suitable conditions. Their needs and how they meet them vary: a plant makes food using light, while an echidna gets energy by eating ants and termites.

6.The post office team is writing a care note for a rescued echidna. Name two resources or conditions it needs to survive, and explain how one helps it.

7.A potted plant near a window bends towards the light over several days. What characteristic of life does this show, and what is the stimulus?

8.A parcel contains a dry bean seed. Explain why it can be living even if it has not visibly grown during the week it was stored.

9.Design a fair investigation to find out whether a seedling grows towards light. State what you would change, what you would keep the same, and what you would measure or observe.