Biological sciences

• Living things have life cycles (ACSSU072)

• Living things, including plants and animals, depend on each other and the environment to survive (ACSSU073)

Use and influence of science

• Science knowledge helps people to understand the effect of their actions (ACSHE062)
  

What is this bird doing in the crocodile's mouth?

This is the Plover bird. He is picking the meat out of the crocodiles teeth, this helps both animals. The crocodile ends up with nice clean teeth and the bird gets a meal out of it.

Why doesn't the crocodile eat the bird?

The crocodile knows that he needs the bird to survive, he can't clean his own teeth. The bird knows this too, that's why it isn't afraid. These animals are aware of the fact that they depend on each other to survive. There are hundreds more examples like this in nature.

Like the relationship between the plover bird and the crocodile, everything else in nature depends on each other to survive. In the same way that animals rely on each other, both animals and plants have a relationship where they depend on each other to survive.

There are three types of organisms in the world. Producers, consumers and decomposers.

• Producer - A living thing that can make it's own food (Plants).

• Consumer - An organism that gets its food from (eating) other living things, in order to have enough energy to survive or reproduce (Animals like cats and dogs).

• Decomposer - An organism that breaks down other living things to obtain nutrients/energy (Bugs, insects, beetles, maggots).

Water pollution is one of the biggest problems in the world.

Even though we are surrounded by water in Australia, the reality is that less than 1% of water in the world is drinkable. The rest is salt water (what the ocean is). Therefore, we have a very limited amount of water we can actually use to drink. If we keep wasting water then future generations (your own children, and their children) will have very little water to survive. We need to start saving now so that people in the next generation will be able to survive.

What are some ways that you can save water?

Below is a link to an online game that's all about how to save water around the home.

http://www.missionh2o.com.au/game/

This is an example of how animals and plants depend on each other to survive. Without flowers, bees would have no food and without the bees the flowers wouldn't be able to spread their pollen as well. We can see that all things in nature are connected and how when we change one thing in the environment we're really changing something much bigger. Think about what would happen if you cut down a forest. How many different living creatures would it affect? Think of all the relationships between plants and animals that would be affected by such a major change to the environment.