Ingredients for Life

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Macromolecule: a very large molecule such as a protein.

Molecule: a chemical structure that has two or more atoms held together by a chemical bond. Water is a molecule of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H₂O)... more

If you look around your neighborhood you will see homes, stores, streets and cars. All of these things are made from different building materials. The homes and stores are made from bricks, cement, wood and nails. The roads are made from asphalt or cement. All the cars are made from metal, glass, rubber and plastic.

When you look around you also see plants and animals. Just like the buildings and cars in your neighborhood, living things are made from building materials.

So what are living things made from and how are the parts put together?

As you can see from the list below, life on Earth is built from increasingly more complex building blocks. At the widest view you have all living and non-living things - Earth. Soon you learn that each building block seems to be made of smaller building blocks - until you reach the smallest building block with the funny name - quark.

The list below deals with living things and how each building block is made from yet a smaller set of building blocks.

	Biosphere - Our Earth is made up of all living and non-living things. The interaction of all these building blocks make up the biosphere.
	Ecosystem- Communities of living things interact with non-living things. The air, earth and water play an important role in the building blocks of life.
	Community- All animals and plants that live in one place are considered a community.This can be tricky when you include humans, because they can move from community to community. There are also other animals, such as birds and butterflies that migrate from community to community.
	Population- Individuals become the building blocks for a spices. For example, the human population is made of a various races, who interact with each other to make up this world we live in.
	Individual- Individual people make up the community. Each person has their own individual characteristics that make up the diversity of the community.
	Organs and Tissues- The human body, like most plants and animals is made up of organs. These are the brain, heart, kidneys, liver etc. Each organ is made of different tissues. These tissues have their own characteristics and function. Did you know the largest organ in the body is the skin and that you are not wearing the same skin that you were born with?
	Cells- Tissues are made of cells. The cell is the smallest unit of life. What does that mean? It means that the cell is the smallest living thing capable of replicating.
	Organelles- Cells are also made up of individual parts? The interior of any cell has many types of little organs- called organelles, for example- nucleus, mitochondria, Golgi complex etc. All these organelles have their own functions to perform within the cell.
	Proteins - Fats - Carbohydrates - Nucleic Acids- What are organelles made of? All the cellular organelles are made of macromolecules like carbohydrates, Lipids, Proteins, Nucleic acids (DNA, RNA).
	Atoms- To make macromolecules involves even smaller building blocks. You may have heard of atoms before and their parts, neutrons, protons, and electrons. There are 92 naturally occurring atoms (also called elements) but only 11 of these atoms are found in a significant amount in living things. It takes only two atoms to make a molecule.
	Quarks- For many years it was thought that the smallest building blocks were atoms, but now we know that it not true. Scientists have now found even smaller building blocks than atoms. They have a funny name - quarks. There are many "flavors" of quarks. Their names are - up, down, top, bottom, charm and strange.