The Seven Characteristics of Life

For a thing to be considered alive, it has to have seven characteristics. If something does not have all seven of these, then it is not alive.

1. Living Things are composed of Cells.
   Every living thing is made up of cells, which are like micromachines that do different things, all of which are required to stay alive, like take in nutrients from food, convert the nutrients into energy, and dispose of the waste.
   In single-celled organisms, the cell does all the different functions by itself.
2. Living Things have different levels of organization.
   Living things have molecular and cellular organization.
   They must be able to organize simple substances into more complex ones.
   Living things organize cells on several levels, which are:
     Tissue, ⁣
     Organ, ⁣
     Organ System, ⁣
     Organism.
3. Living Things use Energy.
4. Living Things Respond to their Environment.
   They will make changes in response to their environment. For example, if a gazelle sees a lion, it will start running.
5. Living Things Grow.
   They use cell division for the orderly formation of new cells.
   Cells enlarge to a certain size and then can split.
   The organism gets larger based on how many cells it has, for example, an adult has many more cells in his body than a newborn baby but less than an elephant or even a horse.
6. Living Things Reproduce.
7. Living Things Adapt.
   They will change to survive in a new environment or if their old one changes.

Works Cited:

Organization of Life. Ms. Warnock, http://mswarnockv.weebly.com/unit-1---organization-of-life.html.