Unpacked Content
Scientific and Engineering Practices
Engaging in Argument from Evidence; Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions; Developing and Using Models; Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Crosscutting Concepts
Cause and Effect; Systems and System Models; Structure and Function
Knowledge
Students know:
- Some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all in a certain habitat.
- If an environment fully meets the needs of an organism, that organism can survive well within that environment.
- If an environment partially meets the needs of an organism, that organism can survive less well (lower survival rate, increased sickliness, shorter lifespan) than organisms whose needs are met within that environment.
- If an environment does not meet the needs of that organism, that organism cannot survive within that environment.
- Characteristics of a given environment (Examples: soft earth, trees, and shrubs, seasonal flowering plants).
- Characteristics of a given organism (plants with long, sharp, leaves; rabbit coloration) .
- Needs of a given organism (shelter from predators, food, water).
- Characteristics of organisms that might affect survival.
- How and what features of the habitat meet or do not meet the needs of each of the organisms.
- Being a part of a group helps animals obtain food, defend themselves, and cope with changes.
- Members of groups may serve different functions and different groups may vary dramatically in size.
- Habitats and organisms make up a system in which the parts depend upon each other.
- Resources and can categorize them as basic materials, produced materials or nonmaterials as resources in various habitats.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Make a claim supported by evidence about an organism's likelihood of survival in a given habitat.
- Use reasoning to construct an argument.
- Evaluate and connect relevant and appropriate evidence to support a claim.
- Construct explanations that forming groups helps some organisms survive.
- Articulate a statement describing evidence necessary to support the explanation that forming groups helps some organisms survive.
- Create a model that illustrates how organisms and habitats make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.
- Describe relationships between components of the model.
- Categorize resources in various habitats as basic materials, produced material, or nonmaterial.
- Organize data from the categorization to reveal patterns that suggest relationships.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- Cause and effect relationships are routinely identified and used to explain change.
- Evidence suggests a causal relationship within the system between the characteristics of a habitat and the survival of organisms within it.
- The cause and effect relationship between being part of a group and being more successful in obtaining food, defending themselves, and coping with change.
- That the relationship between organisms and their habitats is a system of related parts that make up a whole in which the individual parts depend on each other.
- Resources in various habitats have different structures that are related to their function.
Vocabulary
- Construct
- Argument
- Evidence
- Likelihood
- Organism
- Survive
- Resources
- Habitat
- Explanations
- Groups
- Populations
- Communities
- Niche
- Illustrate
- Models
- System
- Depend (on each other)
- Categorize
- Basic needs (examples: sunlight, air, fresh water, & soil)
- Produced materials (examples: food, fuel, shelter)
- Nonmaterial (examples: safety, instinct, nature-learned behaviors)
