Living things have great diversity of structure and lifestyle; they interact with each other and with the world in which they live. Learners collect information about the ways organisms live in order to develop an understanding of those structures, which enable living things to function effectively in their environments. Learners identify patterns of interactions within environments. They recognize that these interactions contribute to the dynamics of environments. The key concepts of the Life and Living strand are: (i) the characteristics of an organism and its functioning are inter-related, (ii) evolutionary processes have given rise to a diversity of living things, which can be grouped according to their characteristics, and (iii) environments are dynamic and have living and non- living components, which can interact.