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Death Facts for Kids

This web page contains death facts for kids and is a resource for anyone of any age interested in learning about the death of an organism. Our goal is to provide you with accurate, up to date facts about death. In addition to death facts, we provide addition resources to help you with your research on this inevitable biological process.

The death facts below will help you learn about what death is, how death can occur, why all living organisms die, what happens when an organisms dies and other death related facts. We hope these death facts are interesting and help you learn more about this biological process.

If any of the below death facts are inaccurate, please contact us and let us know.


25 Death Facts for Kids

  1. Death is the end of all biological functions in a living organism.
  2. After an organism dies it will decompose and be broken down into simple organic and inorganic matter.
  3. All living organisms eventually die, but every living organism has a different lifespan.
  4. Some organisms only live a few hours, while others can live hundreds of years.
  5. An organism can die due to many different causes, including but not limited to aging, disease or violence.
  6. In humans, death is associated with sadness and fear.
  7. Humans get sad when someone they know dies because due to their feelings for them and broken social bonds.
  8. Humans fear death because we do not know what happens to us after we die.
  9. Some people believe in an afterlife and that afterlife varies by religious beliefs.
  10. Some people believe when we die, nothing happens, and we return to Earth through decomposition.
  11. Everyone has some level of fear related to death, but a person with an extremely level of the fear of death may be diagnosed with Thanatophobia.
  12. A person who is afraid of dead things, not death itself, may be diagnosed with necrophobia.
  13. According to the CDC, the life expectancy in 2017 in the United States for a newborn baby was 78.6 years.
  14. According to the CDC, the leading cause of death in 2017 in the United States was heart disease.
  15. According to the CDC, the second leading cause of death in 2017 in the United States was cancer.
  16. Based on data from the CDC, more than half of the top ten leading causes of death are preventable.
  17. You can extend your lifespan and live a healthy long life by eating good, exercising and avoid drugs.
  18. The oldest living person ever recorded throughout history was Jeanne Calment.
  19. Jeanne Calment was 122 years and 164 days old when she died on August 4th, 1997.
  20. The oldest living animal ever recorded (unverified) was Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea).
  21. Adwaita is believed to have been 255 years old when it died in 2006.
  22. The oldest living aquatic animal ever recorded is believed to be glass sponges in the East China Sea and Southern Ocean.
  23. These glass sponges are estimated to be over 10,000 years old.
  24. The oldest living tree in the world is Methuselah, a Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva).
  25. Methuselah is believed to be over 4,850 years old based on a ring count analysis.

More Human Body Facts

Additional Resources on Death