Necessities of Life

Chapter 2 Section 2
 Explain why organisms need food, water,
air, and living space

 Describe the chemical building blocks of

cells

Objectives
 Producer
 Consumer
 Decomposer
 Protein
 Carbohydrate
 Lipid
 Phospholipids
 ATP
 Nucleic Acid

Vocabulary (9)
 Water

 Air

 A place to live

 Food

Basic Needs
 70% of your cells are made of water

 Chemical reactions in metabolism require

water

 You can only survive for about 3 days

without water

Water
 Mixture of several different gases

 Oxygen (O2): in the air or dissolved in

water is used my organisms

 Carbon Dioxide (CO2): plants need CO2 to

make food

 Some organisms do not need air:

anaerobic bacterium

Air
 Food provides organisms with energy and
raw materials to carry on life processes

 Making food:
◦ Producers - plants

 Taking food:
◦ Consumers – a frog eating an insect
◦ Decomposers – mushrooms (fungi)

Food
 All organisms need to break food down in
order to use the nutrients

 Nutrients are made up of molecules

 Molecules made of different kinds of

atoms are called compounds

Breaking down food

 Molecules found in living things are
usually made up of different combinations
of 6 elements:
◦ Carbon
◦ Hydrogen
◦ Nitrogen
◦ Oxygen
◦ Phosphorus
◦ Sulfur

6 vital elements
 Proteins

 Carbohydrates

 Lipids

 ATP

 Nucleic acids

These elements combine to form:

 Large molecules made up of smaller
molecules (amino acids)

 Making Proteins: organisms break down

proteins in food to supply cells with amino
acids; then they are linked to form new
proteins

 Proteins in action (ex: hemoglobin,

enzymes)

Proteins
 Molecules made of sugars

 Source of energy and for energy storage

 2 kinds of carbohydrates:
◦ Simple (1 sugar molecule, or a few linked
together – table sugar, sugar in fruits)
◦ Complex (hundreds of sugar molecules linked
together – potato plants (starch))

Carbohydrates
 Compounds that cannot mix with water

 Store energy

 Form the membrane of cells

Lipids
 Molecules that form most of the
membrane of a cell

 The head is attracted to water

 The tail is not attracted to water

 In water, the tails come together and the

heads face out

Phospholipids
http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/lipidbilayer.gif
 Lipids that store energy

 Stored in plants as oils (liquids)

 Stored in animals as fats (solids)

Fats & Oils

 Adenosine triphosphate

 Major energy-carrying molecule in the cell

 Energy in carbohydrates and lipids is

transferred to ATP, then to fuel for cell
activities

ATP
 Blueprints of life (DNA)

 All the information needed to make

proteins

 Made up of large molecules called

nucleotides

 The order of the nucleotides stores

information

Nucleic Acids
 Give an example of a producer, consumer,
and a decomposer.

 Name 2 functions of lipids

 How are proteins used by an organism?

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