Living and Non-Living Things Class 3 Notes Science

What are Living Things?

Living things are anything that can grow, move, and respond to their surroundings. They eat, breathe, reproduce, and can change over time. Animals, plants, fungi, and even tiny bacteria are examples of living things.

Living Things

• Living things have life. All living things are natural. Human beings cannot make them. Plants and animals are the natural living things.

What are Non-Living Things?

Non-living things are objects that don't have life. They don't grow, move on their own, or respond to their environment like living things do. Things like rocks, water, air, and even your toys or books are non-living. They're still important because they provide the stuff living things need to survive, like water and air!

Non-Living Things

• Non-living things may be natural or man-made. The sun, moon, stars, rivers, oceans and mountains are natural non-living things. Things such as aeroplanes, cars, books, tables and chairs are man-made non-living things. 

Characteristics of Living Things

1. Living Things Move

Animals move from place to place in search of food, water, shelter and to protect themselves from their enemies. The movement of animals from one place to another place is called locomotion.

Living Things Move

Different animals move in different ways:

• Humans walk, run, jog and skip.
• Deer, leopards, and buffaloes walk and run with the help of their legs.
• Kangaroos and rabbits hop using their body parts.
• Monkeys swing from tree to tree using their limbs and tail.

• Most of the insects and birds move by flying using their wings and legs.
• Fish swim with the help of their fins and tails. Birds like ducks and geese use their webbed feet to swim in water.
• Some animals, which do not have limbs, use other parts of the body to move. Snails, snakes, and earthworms can slide/crawl on the ground using their muscles.

Various plants also show movement in different ways:

Sunflowers turn towards light

• A sunflower turns to face towards the sun. 
• Similarly, the tips of the seedlings bend towards light. 
• Climber plants grow on support. The roots of plants move towards ground so as to absorb water.

2. Living Things Need Food And Water

All living things need food and water to live. Food gives the energy to carry out different life activities.

• Animals get their food directly or indirectly from plants. Animals like cow, deer, sheep, and elephant eat leaves and grass, while some others like lion, tiger, and bear eat other animals.
• Plants cannot move from one place to another like animals for food. They make their own food. Green plants are the only living things that can make their own food in the presence of water, air, and sunlight.

3. Living Things Grow

All animals are born small but as time passes they become bigger. Look at your childhood pictures. You have grown from being a baby to a child. All animals also grow. 

• A chick hatches out of an egg and then grows into a hen or rooster. Tadpoles grow to become frogs. Caterpillar grows into a butterfly.

• A seed grows into a seedling or baby plant that further grows into a plant.
• Living things grow and change in height, size and appearance. When they become old, they die.

4. Living Things Breathe

Place your hand on your chest. What do you feel? We feel our chest moving up and down. This movement is due to breathing. Animals breathe by different means

• Animals like cows, cats, and dogs that live on land, have lungs to breathe.
  
• Fish and some other animals that live in water, use gills to breathe.
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• We cannot observe breathing movements in plants but they too take in air from tiny holes present on leaves called stomata (Stoma: singular)
  

5. Living Things Can Feel 

All living things can feel. When we feel cold, we cover ourselves with woolen clothes.

• Ants come to find out sugar (if kept in an open place) no matter how far off they are. 
• We are able to feel because of our sense organs. 
• We have five sense organs—eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin.
• Just like human beings and animals, plants can also feel. They do feel changes around them but they do not have sense organs.

6. Living Things Reproduce

All living things reproduce, that is, they produce other living beings of their own kind. This is called reproduction.

• Female animals give birth to young ones or lay eggs from which babies hatch.
• Animals such as cows, monkeys, dogs, tigers, elephants, and rabbits give birth to babies.
• Animals such as birds, snakes, crocodiles, and lizards lay eggs.
  
• Most plants produce seeds that grow into new plants. Some plants produce new plants from their stems, roots, or leaves. 

7. Living Things Go Through A Life Cycle

Living things are born, grow, reproduce, get old and die after some time. However, non-living things do not show such life cycle. 

Differences Between Living Things and Non-living Things

Living things have some special features that make them different from nonliving things. Some special features of living things have been given below:

1. Living things can move. Non-living things like chair, house, etc. cannot move on their own.
2. Living things can grow. Non-living things cannot grow on their own.
3. Living things can breathe but non-living things do not breathe.
4. Living things need food and water. Non-living things not required any food and water.
5. Living things can feel. There is no feeling in non-living things
6. Living things can reproduce. Non-living things do not reproduce.
7. Living things can die. Non-living things can destroy.

In Brief!

• Everything can be categorized as either living or non-living.
• Plants and animals are both considered living as they exhibit characteristics such as growth, respiration, consumption, sensation, reproduction, and mortality.
• While plants can perceive environmental changes, they lack sensory organs.
• Female animals either give birth to offspring or lay eggs from which hatchlings emerge.
• Non-living entities lack vital signs of life—they do not engage in movement, respiration, growth, consumption of food and water, reproduction, or sensation.