Biology Living things and the places they live: habitats from the rainforest canopy to the desert, the Arctic, the ocean, coral reefs, rivers and marshes; plants, animals, food chains, the human body, growth, health and the cycles of life. The largest course of the school, it gives Mova the names, the kinds and the habits of the living world, and the questions test whether it can reason about them.
The biology course of Mova's primary school: 405 lessons, 6727 sentences, each sentence with its syntax tree and pragmatics. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Mova corpus 0.4).
1 What a habitat is: home, food, shelter and fitting in 18 sentences · A habitat is the place where a living thing lives and finds everything it needs: the right air or water, foo… 2 The rainforest from the top: emergent layer and canopy 18 sentences · A tropical rainforest is a tower of homes in layers: a few giant emergent trees poke out at the very top, be… 3 The rainforest from below: understorey and forest floor 18 sentences · Under the canopy lies the understorey, a dim world of young trees, shrubs, vines and big-leaved plants, and… 4 The savanna: grass, trees and the great herds 18 sentences · A savanna is a warm grassland with trees scattered here and there, like the plains of the Serengeti in Afric… 5 The desert: living with little water 16 sentences · A desert is a place with very little rain, not necessarily a hot one: deserts bake by day but can freeze at… 6 The Arctic: ice, snow and the polar bear's world 17 sentences · The Arctic is the frozen top of the world: an ocean covered by floating sea ice, surrounded by the cold tree… 7 Antarctica: penguins, seals and the coldest place on Earth 19 sentences · Antarctica is a continent at the bottom of the world, buried under ice more than 4 km thick in places, so hi… 8 The ocean: open sea, sunlit zone and the deep dark 17 sentences · The ocean is a building of floors made of water: the sunlit zone in the top 200 metres, where there is enoug… 9 Coral reefs, rockpools and the seashore 17 sentences · A coral reef looks like coloured rock, but it is built by billions of tiny animals called polyps, cousins of… 10 Rivers, lakes and ponds 18 sentences · Fresh water is a habitat of its own: rivers rush and carry mud and stones, while ponds and lakes stand still… 11 Swamps, marshes, mangroves and bogs 17 sentences · A wetland is land that is soaked with water for much of the year: a marsh is full of reeds and grasses, a sw… 12 Forests: woodland through the year and the great northern forest 15 sentences · Kick through autumn leaves and you are walking on next year's soil: fungi and tiny creatures rot the leaves… 13 Mountains: life as you climb higher 16 sentences · Climbing a high mountain is like travelling from summer to the North Pole in one day: woods at the bottom, t… 14 The city as a habitat 15 sentences · To a wild animal a city is not concrete and cars, it is a strange new landscape: tall buildings are cliffs,… 15 Monkeys: kinds, tails and troops 16 sentences · There are hundreds of kinds of monkeys, from a pygmy marmoset that could sit on your finger to a mandrill he… 16 The great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans 16 sentences · The great apes are four kinds of big, tailless, very clever animals: chimpanzees and bonobos, gorillas, and… 17 How close are apes to us? 17 sentences · Put your hand next to a picture of a chimpanzee's hand: five fingers, flat fingernails, a thumb that can tou… 18 The lion: why people call it «king of the beasts»; prides and roars 18 sentences · People have called the lion king of the beasts for thousands of years: the big golden male with his mane, th… 19 The tiger: the biggest and strongest cat, a solitary and cunning hunter 16 sentences · The tiger is the biggest cat on Earth: a huge Amur or Bengal male can weigh about as much as three or four g… 20 Leopards, jaguars, cheetahs and the house cat 18 sentences · The cat on your sofa is a tiny cousin of the leopard: the same soft paws, sharp claws, whiskers and night-sh… 21 Elephants: the trunk and everything it does 19 sentences · An elephant has one trunk, two ears, four legs, two eyes and one heart, but the trunk is the part that does… 22 Elephants: families, tusks, ears and memory 17 sentences · An elephant herd is a family of grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters and babies, and it walks in a line beh… 23 Bears 18 sentences · There are eight kinds of bear in the world, from the huge polar bear on the Arctic sea ice to the small sun… 24 Wolves and dogs 16 sentences · Every pet dog, from a tiny chihuahua to a Great Dane, comes from wolves that began living alongside people m… 25 Horses, zebras and donkeys 18 sentences · A horse is a runner built to escape: four long legs, each ending in a single giant toe whose hoof is a huge… 26 Whales 16 sentences · Stand under the life-size blue whale model hanging in a museum: about 30 metres long, about as long as two a… 27 Dolphins, porpoises and seals 16 sentences · A dolphin is a small toothed whale with one blowhole, about 80 to 100 cone-shaped teeth it never chews with,… 28 Sharks 19 sentences · A shark is a fish with no bones at all: its skeleton is cartilage, the bendy stuff in your nose and ears, so… 29 Crocodiles and alligators 18 sentences · Crocodiles and alligators are reptiles with four short legs, a long tail and a body that has hardly changed… 30 Snakes and lizards 17 sentences · Snakes and lizards are reptiles with dry scaly skin; a lizard usually has four legs, while a snake has none… 31 Turtles and tortoises 20 sentences · A turtle's shell is not a coat it can take off: it is part of its skeleton, with the ribs and backbone grown… 32 Frogs, toads, newts and salamanders 17 sentences · Frogs, toads, newts and salamanders are amphibians, which means «double life»: most start life in water and… 33 Birds: feathers, wings, eggs and flight 16 sentences · Birds are the only animals alive today with feathers, and nearly every part of a bird is built to be light a… 34 Birds of prey and owls 16 sentences · Birds of prey, also called raptors, hunt other animals with sharp eyes, hooked beaks and gripping feet with… 35 Birds of every kind: penguins, ostriches, parrots, hummingbirds, songbirds, crows 15 sentences · About 11,000 kinds of birds share the same plan of feathers, beak and two wings, yet each has bent it to fit… 36 Insects: six legs, three parts; ants, bees and wasps 16 sentences · Every adult insect is built on the same plan: six legs and a body in three parts, a head with eyes and feele… 37 Insects: butterflies, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers 16 sentences · A green caterpillar hangs upside down, turns into a chrysalis, and inside much of its body melts into a kind… 38 Spiders, scorpions and other eight-legged creatures 18 sentences · Spiders are not insects: they are arachnids, with eight legs, a body in only two parts, no feelers, no wings… 39 Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish 19 sentences · Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish are molluscs, cousins of snails, whose shells have shrunk inside or vanished… 40 Counting animals: legs, arms, wings and tails 15 sentences · Counting is one of a scientist's best tools: the number of legs, arms or wings tells you what kind of animal… 41 Counting animals: eyes, ears, hearts, trunks, tentacles, teeth 15 sentences · Counting an animal's parts is a real scientist's game: how many hearts, eyes, legs or teeth it has tells you… 42 The capybara: the calmest animal, friend of crocodiles? 16 sentences · The capybara is the biggest rodent in the world, a giant cousin of the guinea pig as heavy as a grown man, t… 43 The platypus and the echidna: mammals that lay eggs 17 sentences · Mammals are animals with fur or hair that feed their babies milk, and almost all of them give birth to live… 44 The axolotl, the tardigrade and the mantis shrimp 15 sentences · Three small animals with superpowers that are real but often told wrong: the axolotl regrows lost legs, the… 45 More record-breakers and oddballs: sloth, narwhal, chameleon, electric eel, giraffe 18 sentences · Every record-breaking body is an answer to a problem: the sloth is slow because leaves give little energy, t… 46 Food chains: sun, plants, plant-eaters, meat-eaters 14 sentences · Almost every meal on Earth starts with sunlight: green plants and algae catch the Sun's energy and build foo… 47 Who eats whom: predators, prey, scavengers and decomposers 14 sentences · A predator hunts and kills other animals for food, its prey; scavengers eat animals that are already dead, a… 48 Life cycles and metamorphosis: frog, butterfly, ladybird 13 sentences · Many animals change shape completely as they grow up: a tadpole becomes a frog, a caterpillar becomes a butt… 49 Babies: eggs, live birth, pouches and parents 16 sentences · Animals have babies in three main ways: they lay eggs that hatch outside, they give birth to live young that… 50 How animals talk 16 sentences · Animals do not speak words like us, but they send each other messages all the time with sounds, dances, smel… 51 How animals hide: camouflage and mimicry 18 sentences · Out in the wild, being seen can mean being eaten, and being seen by your dinner means going hungry, so many… 52 How animals hunt 17 sentences · A hunter has to find its food, get close, catch it and hold on, and every hunter has its own plan: some chas… 53 How animals defend themselves 15 sentences · If you cannot run faster than the fox, you need another plan, and animals have hundreds: spines, armour, sti… 54 Migration: the great journeys 17 sentences · Migration is a long journey that animals make, often every year, between places that are good at different t… 55 Sleep and hibernation 18 sentences · Every animal needs rest, but they rest in amazing ways: dolphins sleep with half their brain, giraffes nap s… 56 How plants grow: seeds, light, water and air 17 sentences · A plant is a food factory: in its green leaves it takes light from the Sun, water from the ground and carbon… 57 Roots, stems and leaves 17 sentences · A plant is built like a house with plumbing: roots underground drink water and hold on tight, the stem is a… 58 Flowers and pollination 16 sentences · A flower is not there to look pretty for us: its job is to make seeds, and for that, pollen from the stamens… 59 Seeds and fruit and how they travel 18 sentences · A seed is a baby plant packed with a lunchbox, and the worst place for it to land is right under its parent,… 60 Trees 16 sentences · Count the rings on a stump in the woods and you know its age: each year makes one ring, pale wood from fast… 61 Carnivorous and strange plants 17 sentences · Most plants live quietly on light, air, water and a little from the soil, but some grow in wet, boggy ground… 62 Fungi: mushrooms, mould and yeast 15 sentences · A mushroom is not a plant and not an animal: it belongs to a third great kingdom of life, the fungi, which a… 63 Microbes: bacteria and viruses, good and bad 18 sentences · Microbes are living things far too small to see; a thousand bacteria in a row would just about stretch acros… 64 Cells, bones and muscles 18 sentences · Your body is built of cells, tiny living units far too small to see, about 30 trillion of them, each doing i… 65 The heart and blood 18 sentences · Put your hand flat on your chest and you feel it: thump, thump, your heart, a muscle about the size of your… 66 Lungs and breathing 18 sentences · Every cell in your body needs oxygen from the air, and your lungs are where the air and the blood meet. 67 Digestion: the journey of a sandwich 18 sentences · A cheese sandwich at lunch goes on a long journey, and by the end your body has broken it into pieces so tin… 68 The brain and nerves 16 sentences · Your brain weighs about as much as a big bag of sugar, is soft like tofu, and runs everything you do, think,… 69 Senses: eyes and ears 15 sentences · Your eyes catch light and your ears catch vibrations in the air, and both turn what they catch into nerve si… 70 Senses: nose, tongue and skin 17 sentences · You smell cookies baking from the other room because tiny invisible bits of the cookies have floated through… 71 Growing: teeth, height, hair, nails, from baby to grown-up 15 sentences · Your body is a building site that never closes: bones lengthen, teeth are swapped, hair and nails creep out,… 72 Staying healthy: germs, vaccines, sleep, food and exercise 16 sentences · Your body is a castle under siege by germs too small to see, and it has walls (skin), guards (the immune sys… 73 Evolution simply: why living things change over many generations 14 sentences · Look at a litter of puppies: no two are exactly alike, because every baby gets a fresh shuffle of its parent… 74 Fossils: how we know about life long ago 15 sentences · A fossil is a message from a world nobody saw: the remains or traces of a living thing kept in rock, ice or… 75 Dinosaurs: kinds, sizes and how they lived 16 sentences · Dinosaurs ruled the land for about 160 million years, from about 230 to 66 million years ago, and they came… 76 The end of the dinosaurs, and birds as living dinosaurs 16 sentences · About 66 million years ago a rock about 10 kilometres wide, taller than Mount Everest, slammed into the sea… 77 Endangered animals and extinction 14 sentences · Extinct means gone for ever: when the last animal of a kind dies, no zoo, scientist or wish can bring that k… 78 Conservation: how people help animals come back 16 sentences · Conservation means protecting living things and their homes so that animals on the edge can come back, and i… 79 Animals of Australia and New Zealand: kangaroos, koalas, wombats, kiwis 17 sentences · Australia and New Zealand drifted away from the other continents long ago, and their animals went their own… 80 Animals of North America and Britain: moose, bald eagles, raccoons, beavers, foxes, badgers, hedgehogs, robins 16 sentences · North America and Britain share some animals, like the red fox, and have their own stars: the moose wading i… 81 The big cats house: lions and tigers up close 16 sentences · In the big cats house a lion may lie on a warm rock for your whole visit, and that is not laziness: a lion h… 82 The big cats house: snow leopards, jaguars, small cats and enrichment 15 sentences · Every cat in the big cats house is built for its own home: the snow leopard wraps its long furry tail round… 83 The elephant house: herds, feet, food and the mouse myth 17 sentences · An elephant herd is a family of mothers, daughters, aunts and babies, and at the front walks the grandmother… 84 The ape house: gorillas and chimpanzees 15 sentences · In the ape house a huge silverback sits quietly, chewing leaves and watching his family, because real gorill… 85 The ape house: orangutans, gibbons, bonobos and how apes think 13 sentences · An orangutan moves slowly across the ropes on arms longer than its legs, an arm span of over 2 metres, while… 86 The monkey house and the lemurs of Madagascar 15 sentences · Ring-tailed lemurs sit in the morning sun with their arms out like children doing yoga, warming their bellie… 87 The reptile house: snakes 15 sentences · In the reptile house a big python lies so still you think it is plastic; a snake is cold-blooded, warming it… 88 The reptile house: Komodo dragons, chameleons, tortoises and crocodiles 18 sentences · The Komodo dragon, the biggest lizard alive, flicks a long yellow tongue to smell, and a sign tells a true s… 89 The amphibian room: poison frogs, axolotls and the frog rescue 17 sentences · In the amphibian room tiny frogs as bright as sweets hop about; in the wild a poison dart frog's colours sho… 90 The aquarium: the coral reef tank 15 sentences · Stand in front of the reef tank and it looks like a busy town under water: clownfish tucked into waving anem… 91 The aquarium: the shark tunnel and the rays 19 sentences · In a big aquarium you can walk through a tunnel of thick clear acrylic, so the sea is all around you and sha… 92 The aquarium: jellyfish, octopuses, sea stars and the deep sea 16 sentences · Some of the strangest animals in the aquarium are not fish at all: jellyfish, octopuses, cuttlefish, sea sta… 93 The aviary: the walk-through tropical house 17 sentences · A walk-through aviary is a huge netted house where birds fly free over your head while you walk along the pa… 94 Parrots, flamingos and the bird of prey show 17 sentences · A parrot says «hello» because in the wild it copies the calls of its flock to belong, and in a zoo or a home… 95 The nocturnal house: night animals by red light 18 sentences · The nocturnal house swaps day and night: lights are dim in the zoo's daytime and bright at night when the zo… 96 The petting farm: goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and washing hands 15 sentences · Each of these animals is built for its own life: the goat's flat pupils watch the ground for wolves, the cow… 97 The insect house: ants, stick insects, tarantulas and scorpions 17 sentences · Above your head in the insect house a line of leafcutter ants carries green leaf pieces along a rope, and th… 98 The butterfly house 18 sentences · The butterfly house is warm and damp like a rainforest, because butterflies are cold-blooded and the tropica… 99 The penguin pool 16 sentences · On land penguins waddle like clumsy toys, but the moment they dive they shoot through the water like torpedo… 100 Sea lions, seals and otters 19 sentences · A sea lion claps its flippers and walks up the rocks on all four, while a harbour seal next door wriggles on… ← previous Artsnext → Books↑ back to the school This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/