Learn it
Scientists sort the world into living things and non-living things. Living things include people, animals, plants and tiny living things called microbes.
Living things:
- grow and change,
- need food (or make it), water and air,
- can make new living things like themselves (babies, seeds or eggs),
- respond to the world around them.
A rock does not grow, eat or have babies, so it is non-living. A toy car moves, but only when we push it or turn it on, so it is non-living too.
🔎 Amazing facts
- A giant sequoia tree can live for more than 3,000 years.
- Your body is made of trillions of tiny living building blocks called cells.
🧪 Try it: Living or not living?
- Go on a walk inside or outside with a grown-up.
- Find 10 things and draw each one.
- Sort your drawings into two piles: living and non-living.
- For each living thing, say one way you know it is alive.
Think about it: Is a fallen leaf living? It was living. Scientists sometimes use a third group: ‘once living’.