I’m an 8th grader, and am making flash cards. In the study guide, there’s something about a life process called regulation. I don’t really get what it does – I want to make my study set easy for me to understand. First day of this unit, so I’m hoping making a good study set will help me do well. Thanks!
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All living things are build themselves assuming certain parameters are met – for example, they might assume the temperature will be within a certain range, or that a certain amount of calories will be available every day in its environment, or that it won’t have giant open wounds in its skin.
But life happens, and the laws of physics don’t care what you want, so maybe today it’s too hot out, or there’s no food to be found, or you scrape your knee.
“Regulation” means the organism is actively doing something or other to try to keep the parameters in the range needed to keep on living. Too hot? The organism can “regulate temperature” by seeking shade or shedding excess heat through sweating or panting. No food? Then the organism can fiddle with its metabolism to consume energy from internal storage (fat, even muscle if things get really bad) and also use less energy over all, e.g. by not moving around as much. Big wound? The organism can try to mitigate the damage by patching up the hole, first with a scab and then a new layer of skin, and deploying a bunch of immune cells to the area to fight off any germs trying to get in through the breach.
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