| Term | Definition |
| Sun | This is the primary energy source for living things on earth (directly or indirectly) |
| Adaptations | Traits that are inherited over long periods of time that help living things survive. |
| Equilibrium | Something that is balanced or equal |
| Death | The end of an organism's life span |
| Stimulus / Stimuli | Information gathered by your senses and processed by your brain about your surroundings |
| Development | The process of becoming more advanced and complex over time |
| Adjust | Living things must deal with changes in their environment |
| Dynamic Equilibrium | Another word for homeostasis. It means something that changes as it stays the same. |
| Water | Living things need this liquid to survive |
| Metabolism | The sum of all chemical reactions in an organism. |
| Organism | A living thing |
| Energy | All living things must be able to create and use energy |
| Reproduction | All species of living things must reproduce in order to make sure their species survives. |
| Static | Something that stays the same |
| Growth | The process of physically getting bigger. |
| Locomotion | the ability to move from place to place. NOT a requirement of life! |
| Aging | The process of growing old- results in an organism's body or cells no longer working correctly |
| Sexual reproduction | Reproduction where two parent organisms combine their DNA |
| Life span | Organisms are born, grow and develop, age, and die. |
| Asexual reproduction | Reproduction involving only 1 parent organism |
| Birth | The start of an organism's life span. |
| EWWCARL | An acronym used to remember the 7 characteristics of living things |
| Homeostasis | Maintaining internal conditions at a constant level, even as conditions outside of the organism change (example: maintaining a specific internal temperature no matter how warm or cold it is outside) |
| Dynamic | Something that changes |
| Cells | The building blocks of life, these make up all living things |
| Waste | The harmful leftovers from our metabolism that must be removed from the body. |
