Sci+Unit+5+Rhythm+of+Life

Food provides molecules that serve as fuel and building material for all organisms. Plants use the energy from light to make sugars from carbon dioxide and water. Green plants are the producers of food that is used directly or indirectly by consumers. Plants can use the food they make immediately or store it for later use. Energy flows through ecosystems in one direction, from the sun through producers to consumers to decomposers. Matter is transferred from one organism to another and between organisms and their environments. Water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen are substances cycled between the living and non-living environments. Investigate how decomposers return nutrients to the environment—such as fungi on fallen logs, mold on bread. Explore the importance and role of bacteria in the guts of animals and plant roots at it relates to the recycling of matter.
 * 6.L.2.1**

Animals and plants have a great variety of body plans and internal structures that contribute to their being able to make or find food and reproduce. The process of sexual reproduction in flowering plants takes place in the flower, which is a complex structure made up of several parts. Some parts of the flower are directly involved in fertilization and seed production. Other flower parts have functions in pollination. A flower is made up of six parts: petals-are leaf like, usually colorful structures arranged in a circle around the top of a flower stem. Sepals are modified leaves that encase the developing flower. They are sterile floral parts and may be either green or leaf like or composed of petal like tissue. Inside the circle of petals are the stamens. A stamen is the male reproductive structure of a flower. At the tip of the stamen is the anther. The anther produces pollen that contains sperm. At the center of the flower, attached to the top of the flower stem lie one or more pistils. The pistil is the female structure of the flower. The bottom portion of the pistil enlarges to form the ovary, a structure with one or more ovules, each containing one egg. When fertilization occurs the ovary grows into the fruit or vegetable. The length of night or dark period controls flowering.
 * 6.L.1.1 **

One of the most general distinctions among organisms is between plants, which use sunlight to make their own food (photosynthesis) and animals, which consume energy-rich foods. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are complementary processes. Plants carry on photosynthesis and cellular respiration where food is broken down into energy. The requirements of one process are the products of the other. Leaves have an epidermis with a waxy cuticle and stomata that help prevent water loss. Guard cells that surround and control the size of the opening in stomata. The loss of water through the stomata is called transpiration. The opening and closing of guard cells regulate transpiration.
 * 6.L.1.2 **

The world contains a wide diversity of physical conditions, which creates a wide variety of environments: freshwater, marine, forest, desert, grasslands, mountain, and others. In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions. Environmental factors that affect an organism’s ability to survive in its environment, such as food availability, predators, and temperature, are limiting factors. A limiting factor is any biotic or abiotic factor that restricts the existence, number, reproduction, or distribution of organisms. For example, at high elevations, temperatures are too low, winds too strong and the soil too thin to support the growth of large trees. Vegetation is limited to small, shallow-rooted plants, mosses, ferns and lichen. Factors that limit one population in a community may also have an indirect effect on another population. For example, a lack of water could limit the growth of grass in a grassland reducing the number of seeds produced. The population of rabbits dependent on those seed for food will also be reduced and the hawks depending on the rabbits will be reduced too as a result of a decrease in their food supply. Another factor for survive is the ability of an organism to withstand fluctuations in biotic and abiotic environmental factors. The limits of an organism’s tolerance are reached when the organism receives too much or too little of some environmental factor. Organisms become fewer as conditions move toward either extreme of the range of tolerance (too much or too little).
 * 6.L.2.3 **

Changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species. Dormancy is a period of inactivity in a mature seed prior to germination; seed remains dormant until conditions are favorable for growth and development of the new plant. Plants have mechanisms that enable them to respond to their environment. Plants grow, reproduce, and shift the position of their roots, stems and leaves in response to environmental conditions such as gravity, sunlight, temperature, and day length. Tropism is a plant’s turning or bending movement of an organism toward or away from an external stimulus such as light, heat or gravity. If the tropism is positive, the plant grows toward the stimulus. If the tropism is negative, the plant grows away from the stimulus. This enhances the survival rate for that plant in a given environment.
 * 6.L.2.2 **

=**Plants**=

Tropism Examples
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[|Photosynthesis]
==[|Respiration], [|What happens during plant respiration?]== ==[|Transpiration] [|Stomata/Guard Cells]==

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=Energy Roles= = =

Autotrophs vs. Heterotrophs
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[|Herbivores, Omnivores, and Carnivores Game]
=Food Webs and Chains=

[|Food Web Game]
=Review=