NCERT Class 6 Science The Living Organisms and their Sorroundings

The Living Organisms and Their Surroundings

Paheli and Boojho went on vacation to many places of interest. One such trip took them to the river Ganga in Rishikesh. They climbed the mountains of the Himalayas, where it was very cold. They saw many kinds of trees on these mountains — oaks, pines and deodars,very different from the ones near their home on the plains! In yet another trip, they travelled to Rajasthan and moved on camels through the hot desert. They collected different kinds of cactus plants from this trip. Finally, they went on a trip to Puri and visited the sea beach, dotted with casuarina trees. While recollecting all the fun that they had on these trips, a thought struck them. All these places were so different from oneanother, some were cold, some very hot and dry, and some places so humid. And yet all of them had many organisms (living creatures) of various kinds. They tried to think of a place on Earth where there may not be any living creatures. Boojho thought of places near his home. Inside the house, he tried the cupboards. He had thought that there may not be any living organisms here, but he found one tiny spider in the cupboard. Outside the home too, there did not seem to be any place, he could think of, that did not have living creatures.

9.1 ORGANISMS AND THE SURROUNDINGS WHERE THEY LIVE 

Another thought that occurred to Paheli and Boojho was about the kinds of living organisms that were present in different locations that they had visited. The deserts had camels, the mountains had goats and yak. Puri had some other creatures — crabs on the beach and such a variety of fish being caught by the fishermen at the sea! And then, there did seem to be some creatures like ants that were present in all these different locations. The kinds of plants found in each of these regions were so different from the plants of the other regions. 

9.2 HABITAT AND ADAPTATION

What do you find from the plants and animals listed in Activity 1? Did you find a large variety in them? Look at what you have entered in the column for the desert and the column for the sea in Table 9.1. Did you list very different kind of organisms in these two columns? What are the surroundings like, in these two regions? In the sea, plants and animals are surrounded by saline (salty) water. Most of them use the air dissolved in water. There is very little water available in the desert. It is very hot in the day time and very cold at night in the desert. The animals and plants of the desert live on the desert soil and breathe air from the surroundings.

The sea and the desert are very different surroundings and we find very different kind of plants and animals in these two regions, isn’t it? Let us look at two very different kinds of organisms from the desert and the sea – a camel and a fish. The body structure of a camel helps it to survive in desert conditions. Camels have long legs which help to keep their bodies away from the heat of the sand (Fig. 9.2). They excrete small amount of urine, their dung is dry and they do not sweat. Since camels lose very little water from their bodies, they can live for many days without water. Let us look at different kinds of fish. Some of these are shown in Fig. 9.3. There are so many kinds of fish, but, do you see that they all have something common about their shape? All the ones shown here have the streamlined shape that was discussed in Chapter 8. This shape helps them move inside water. Fish have slippery scales on their bodies. These scales protect the fish and also help in easy movement through water. We discussed in Chapter 8, that fish have flat fins and tails that help them to change directions and keep their body balance in water. Gills present in the fish help them to use oxygen dissolved in water.

We see that the features of a fish help it to live inside water and the features of a camel help it to survive in a desert. We have taken only two examples from a very wide variety of animals and plants that live on the Earth. In all this variety of organisms, we will find that they have certain features that help them live in the surroundings in which they are normally found. The presence of specific features or certain habits, which enable a plant or an animal to live in its surroundings, is called adaptation. Different animals are adapted to their surroundings in different ways.

The surroundings where organisms live is called a habitat. The organisms depend for their food, water, air, shelter and other needs on their habitat. Habitat means a dwelling place (a home). Several kinds of plants and animals may share the same habitat. The plants and animals that live on land are said to live in terrestrial habitats. Some examples of terrestrial habitats are forests, grasslands, deserts, coastal and mountain regions.

Exercises

1. What is a habitat?

2. How are cactus adapted to survive in a desert?

3. Fill up the blanks

(a) The presence of specific features, which enable a plant or an animal to live in a particular habitat, is called .

(b) The habitats of the plants and animals that live on land are called habitat.

(c) The habitats of plants and animals that live in water are called habitat.

(d) Soil, water and air are the ———— factors of a habitat.

(e) Changes in our surroundings that make us respond to them, are called .

4. Which of the things in the following list are nonliving?

Plough, Mushroom, Sewing machine, Radio, Boat, Water hyacinth, Earthworm

5. Give an example of a non-living thing, which shows any two characteristics of living things.

6. Which of the non-living things listed below, were once part of a living thing?

Butter, Leather, Soil, Wool, Electric bulb, Cooking oil, Salt, Apple, Rubber

7. List the common characteristics of the living things.

8. Explain, why speed is important for survival in the grasslands for animals that live there. (Hint: There are few trees or places for animals to hide in grasslands habitats.)

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 6 Science The Living Organisms and their Sorroundings