- Define and explain Habitats Near You in your own words
- Use key terms such as habitat accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Habitats Near You: explore local habitats and discover how animals and plants suit the places where they live.
Explore local habitats and discover how animals and plants suit the places where they live.
Key ideas
Habitats and adaptation
A habitat is an organism's home. A pond, a woodland and a garden wall are all habitats. Living things suit their habitats: a frog's moist skin helps it live near water, while a cactus stores water to survive in a desert. When a habitat changes, the organisms living there must cope or move.
The seven life processes
Scientists remember the seven life processes with MRS GREN: Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition. Every living thing carries out all seven. A car moves but does not grow or reproduce, so it is not alive; a mushroom grows, respires and reproduces, so it is.
Key term — habitat: The place where an organism lives, providing the food, water, shelter and space it needs to survive.
Name a habitat near your home and one animal that lives there.
Example: a garden pond is a habitat for frogs, which need the water to keep their skin moist and to lay their eggs.
Answer: Example: a garden pond is a habitat for frogs, which need the water to keep their skin moist and to lay their eggs.
- Calling anything that moves alive Wind, flames and cars move but carry out none of the other life processes. Movement alone does not make something alive.
- Saying a dead leaf is alive The leaf was alive when it grew on the tree, but once it falls and dies it stops carrying out life processes, so it is once alive, not alive.
Practice
Yes. A mushroom grows, respires to release energy, and reproduces by releasing spores, so it carries out the life processes.
It carries out none of the seven life processes: it does not grow, respire, sense, reproduce, excrete or take in nutrition on its own.
The fish is alive because it carries out all seven life processes. The fishing rod was never alive and carries out none of them.
Any three of: movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "habitat"?
In the food chain grass → rabbit → fox, which is the producer and why?
- Habitats Near You: explore local habitats and discover how animals and plants suit the places where they live.
- Habitats and adaptation: A habitat is an organism's home.
- organism: A single living thing, such as a daisy, a sparrow or a person.
- Watch out for: calling anything that moves alive