These three characteristics of living things data graphing activities will help your students understand how organisms grow and develop, obtain and use energy, respond to environmental changes, and maintain stable internal conditions—all while building strong graphing and data-analysis skills. This bundle gives teachers an easy, NO PREP way to have students work with real-world datasets while exploring Growth & Development, Metabolism & Energy Use, and Response to Stimuli & Homeostasis.

There are 3 Graphing Labs Included:

1. Growth & Development Data Investigation
2. Metabolism & Energy Use Data Investigation
3. Response to Stimuli & Homeostasis Data Investigation

Students analyze real-world datasets related to human growth, orange-tree growth, vitamin C and guinea-pig tooth development, carbon dioxide uptake in plants, oxygen consumption during exercise, metabolic demand, heart-rate recovery, pupil response to light, and daily body-temperature changes. They create several types of graphs before using their results to identify patterns, analyze relationships, and explain how the data provide evidence of essential life processes.

Each activity includes a complete answer key with the required graphs and is easy to differentiate for different ability levels.

Topics Students Explore

• Characteristics of living things
• Growth and development
• Human growth patterns
• Plant growth over time
• Environmental influences on development
• Metabolism and cellular energy use
• Photosynthesis and carbon dioxide uptake
• Exercise intensity and oxygen consumption
• Metabolic demand during different activities
• Response to internal and external stimuli
• Heart-rate response and recovery
• Pupil response to changing light levels
• Body-temperature regulation
• Homeostasis and regulated ranges
• Using multiple forms of evidence to determine whether something is living

This graphing bundle is also included inside my Middle School Science Graphing & Data Analysis Mega Bundle at a significant discount. The bundle contains graphing activities for all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science topics.

What’s Included

✅ Three characteristics of living things graphing investigations

✅ Real-world data tables for every investigation

✅ Three graphing tasks in each investigation

✅ Background readings and driving questions

✅ Ten data-analysis questions in each investigation plus Claim–Evidence–Reasoning activities

✅ Complete answer keys with finished graphs

✅ Data-based extension challenges

✅ Investigation and extension rubrics

Each activity moves students from reading data → graphing data → interpreting patterns → explaining scientific processes.

Perfect for:

• Characteristics of living things units
• Characteristics of life lessons
• Growth and development activities
• Metabolism and energy-use lessons
• Response to stimuli activities
• Homeostasis lessons
• Living versus nonliving discussions
• Life science and biology units
• Data-analysis practice
• Graphing skill development
• Small-group collaboration
• Sub plans or review days
• Cross-curricular math connections
• NGSS life science connections

Teacher-Friendly Features

• Uses real-world human, plant, and animal data
• Promotes critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning
• Builds graphing and data-literacy skills
• Connects life science concepts to observable biological evidence
• Supports NGSS Science & Engineering Practices
• Easy to implement with no prep
• Flexible for Grades 6–9 classrooms