What's Alive?

Sometimes it's fun to get out of the classroom, and do something to keep students active. That's exactly what our Life Science class did a few days ago. One early, warm morning, we ventured into the courtyard with one task: to gather as many living things as possible. But what is living? I mentioned in my previous post, something is living if it grows, can reproduce, has a balanced internal environment, can respond to stimuli, and uses energy. We picked weeds, a flower, a pine cone, some berries, and even managed to get an ant, and put them all in a plastic bag. Back inside, we went through the contents of our bag, and labeled each item as living now, was living, dead, or never alive. We were also given objects from the classroom to label, which included popcorn kernels, a straw, cotton balls, etc. Once we had a consensus of what each object was, we dampened a paper towel, placed everything in it, and put the entire setup into the plastic bag. We gave the bag a nice puff of air, and closed it. We were to see if anything had grown the following week.

While some things did grow, others made no progress, and others died. The popcorn kernels sprouted into the cotton balls. Some beans that were thrown into the mixture had sprouted. We had guessed that both those items were still alive with potential to grow, and we were correct. The ant, however, hadn't had a source of food, and died. This activity showed us that life does abide by those 5 things I listed, but sometimes there are exceptions. We can create that environment life needs (the baggy), and though something may seem like it isn't currently alive (ie, not growing), it just might not have responded to necessary stimuli yet.