Biotic or Abiotic?
As robots get more and more complex, one can almost think of them as alive. But are they? There are certain characteristics that scientists agree all living things must have. A robot may have some of them, but not all of them.
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Episode 42: Lake Erie Water Snake Researcher (season 2, disc 1)
Find the snake. Catch the snake. Get bit. Get bit again. Get bit a lot. Squeeze the snake until it pukes. Save the puke to study later.
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Turkey vulture (living) eating a seagull (dead) on the beach sand (nonliving). Both the turkey vulture and seagull count as biotic because they are alive or used to be alive. The sand was never alive in the first place, so it is called abiotic.
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How can you tell if you have a dead parrot? Click the one below to find out.
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You probably recognize Frankenstein's Monster. Frankenstein was the mad scientist who created the monster by stitching together body parts from different dead people. So... after the monster has electricity run through it, it starts to move. But, is it alive? Can it do all of the things that you can do?
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We'll take a look at another scene from the movie Young Frankenstein (1974). In this one, Dr. Frankenstein tries to bring his creature to life during a dramatic storm filled with lightning.
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You can experience stimulus and response because you are a living thing. Click below to watch a relaxing car commercial. Heh heh heh.
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Now it is time to make some observations. After watching the Nanobug carefully in a controlled environment, you will make a decision backed by evidence. Is it a living thing or not?
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Why do people hold a garage sale? To get rid of stuff that they don't need. However, as a living organism, there are certain things that ALL living things need to survive.
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You will watch a filmclip from the movie Housefly, and identify different things that you see to demonstrate that flies are alive. They could be some of the characteristics all living things share or things that all living things need to survive. And flies are willing to eat very different things than you. Yummy!
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Use this picture to fill out the following sentence frames as many times as you can:
"I know that the ____________ is / is not a living thing because it has / does not have ____________ ."
"I know that the ____________ is / is not a living thing because it needs / does not need ____________ to survive."
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Use this picture to fill out the following sentence frames as many times as you can:
"I know that the ____________ is / is not a living thing because it has / does not have ____________ ."
"I know that the ____________ is / is not a living thing because it needs / does not need ____________ to survive."
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Return of the Fly (1959)
It's back....