Science Language You Should Know and Use.

Environment – the physical surroundings of an organism, the habitat.

Inherited – a trait passed on from the parent organism to offspring.

Instincts – inborn behaviors.

Learned behavior – learned (not inherited) from repeated reactions in the environment.

Life cycle – the series of events or phases an organism goes through from birth to death, or to the birth of the next generation.

Offspring – the progeny of the parent organism, the children.

Organism – any living thing made of cells.

Parent organism – the parent of the offspring (usually a mom and dad).

Population – all of a species living in a given area.

Specialized structure – unique body or cell parts that help and organism survive (examples: snowshoe hare’s foot, leaves and petals on a plant, and stinger on a scorpion.)

Species – a group of the same organisms sharing common traits.

Survival – a species succeeds, or lives successfully in their environment; finding food, avoiding predators, and raising young.

Traits – inherited characteristics that set a species apart from other species.

Variations – slight differences among individuals of a species.