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Standard 3.0 Life Science: The students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the dynamic nature of living things, their interactions, and the results from the interactions that occur over time.
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Standard 3.0 Life Science: The students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the dynamic nature of living things, their interactions, and the results from the interactions that occur over time.
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Standard 3.0 Life Science: The students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the dynamic nature of living things, their interactions, and the results from the interactions that occur over time.
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A. Diversity of Life
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A. Diversity of Life
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A. Diversity of Life
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1. Explain how animals and plants can be grouped according to observable features.
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a. Observe and compile a list of a variety of animals or plants in both familiar and unfamiliar environments.
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b. Classify a variety of animals and plants according to their observable features and provide reasons for placing them into different groups.
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c. Given a list of additional animals or plants, decide whether or not they could be placed within the established groups or does a new group have to be added.
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d. Describe what classifying tells us about the relatedness among the animals or plants placed within any group.
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B. Cells
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B. Cells
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B. Cells
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1. Explore the world of minute living things to describe what they look like, how they live, and how they interact with their environment.
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a. Use magnifying instruments to observe and describe using drawings or text (oral or written) minute organisms, such as brine shrimp, algae, aphids, etc. that are found in different environments.
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b. Describe any observable activity displayed by these organisms.
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c. Provide reasons that support the conclusion that these organisms are alive.
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d. Use information gathered about these minute organisms to compare mechanisms they have to satisfy their basic needs to those used by larger organisms.
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C. Genetics
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C. Genetics
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C. Genetics
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1. Explain that there are identifiable stages in the life cycles (growth, reproduction, and death) of plants and animals.
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1. Explain that in order for offspring to resemble their parents, there must be a reliable way to transfer information from one generation to the next.
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a. Investigate and describe that seeds change and grow into plants.
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a. Describe traits found in animals and plants, such as eye color, height, leaf shape, seed type that are passed from one generation to another
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b. Compare and describe the changes that occur in humans during their life cycle (birth, newborn, child, adolescent, adult, elder).
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b. Explain that some likenesses between parents and offspring are inherited (such as eye color in humans, nest building in birds, or flower color in plants) and other likenesses are learned (such as language in humans )
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c. Given pictures of stages in the life cycle of a plant or an animal, determine the sequence of the stages in the life cycle.
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c. Raise questions based on observations of a variety of parent and offspring likenesses and differences, such as "Why don't all the puppies have the same traits, such as eye color and size as their parents?" or "How do traits get transferred?"
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d. Provide examples, using observations and information from readings that life cycles differ from species to species.
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d. Develop a reasonable explanation to support the idea that information is passed from parent to offspring.
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D. Evolution
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D. Evolution
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D. Evolution
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1. Observe and describe examples of variation (differences) among individuals of one kind within a population.
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1. Explain that individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
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a. Observe and describe individuals in familiar animal populations, such as cats or dogs, to identify how they look alike and how they are different.
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a. Describe ways in which organisms in one habitat differ from those in another habitat and consider how these differences help them survive and reproduce.
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b. Examine pictures of organisms that lived long ago, such as dinosaurs, and describe how they resemble organisms that are alive today.
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b. Explain that the characteristics of an organism affect its ability to survive and reproduce.
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c. Recognize that some kinds of organisms have completely disappeared.
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c. Examine individuals in a group of the same kind of animals or plants to identify differences in characteristics, such as hearing ability in rabbits or keenness of vision in hawks that might give those individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
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d. Examine and compare fossils to one another and to living organisms as evidence that some individuals survive and reproduce.
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E. Flow of Matter and Energy
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E. Flow of Matter and Energy
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E. Flow of Matter and Energy
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1. Recognize that materials continue to exist even though they change from one form to another.
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1. Recognize food as the source of materials that all living things need to grow and survive.
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a. Identify and compile a list of materials that can be recycled.
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a. Classify the things that people and animals take into their bodies as food or not food.
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b. Identify what happens to materials when they are recycled.
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b. Describe what happens to food in plants and animals.
- Contributes to growth
- Supports repair
- Provides energy
- Is stored for future use
- Is eliminated
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c. Observe and record the sequence of changes that occur to plants and animals that die and decay.
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c. Identify the things that are essential for plants to grow and survive.
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d. Ask and develop possible answers to questions about what happens to the materials that living things are made of when they die.
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F. Ecology
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F. Ecology
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F. Ecology
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1. Explain that organisms can grow and survive in many very different habitats.
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1. Explain ways that individuals and groups of organisms interact with each other and their environment.
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a. Investigate a variety of familiar and unfamiliar habitats and describe how animals and plants found there maintain their lives and survive to reproduce.
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a. Identify and describe the interactions of organisms present in a habitat.
- Competition for space, food, and water
- Beneficial interactions: nesting, pollination, seed dispersal, oysters filtering as in the Chesapeake Bay, etc.
- Roles within food chains and webs: scavengers, decomposers, producers, consumers.
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b. Explain that organisms live in habitats that provide their basic needs.
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b. Explain that changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful.
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c. Explain that animals and plants sometimes cause changes in their environments.
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