Living Things And Non Living Things

Living things breathe air to live. Practice the activity to check this on your own.

1. We can press our nostrils between our thumb and finger now we are unable to breathe and we feel uncomfortable. When we release our thumb and finger now we can breathe easily and feel comfortable. So, we need air to breathe.


2. We can keep our hands in front of our nose and we can feel that air coming out of our nose at a regular interval and it shows that we breathe out. Now we can hold our breath for a few seconds with our fingers, we feel uncomfortable. As soon as we release our nose we at once start to take in deep breaths. So, it shows that we cannot live if we do not breathe in. Similarly, like us animals and plants also breathe to live.
3. If we keep a plant in a closed box the plant will not be able to breathe and it will soon dry up and die. We might think that plants do not breathe because they do not have a nose. It is true that plants do not have noses, but they breathe through very small openings in their leaves called stomata. So, it shows that a plant also needs air to breathe.



4. Like us, most of the animals breathe through their nose. Frog breathes in water through the skin and on earth through its lungs.


Fish breathe through their gills.


Ants, grasshoppers, cockroaches, etc. breathe through air holes in their bodies. Thus, from the above discussion we come to know that all living things can breathe to live. Human beings, animals and plants need air to breathe. Non-living things do not breathe. We haven’t seen a table or a chair breathing air. A table or a chair does not breathe since, they are non-living things.