Unpacked Content
Scientific and Engineering Practices
Developing and Using Models
Crosscutting Concepts
Systems and System Models
Knowledge
Students know:
- The biosphere is the portion of the Earth that supports life.
- The lowest level of organization is the individual organism itself.
- Individual organisms of a single species that share the same geographical location at the same time make up the population.
- A group of interacting populations that occupy the same geographical area at the same time is a biological community.
- An ecosystem is the biological community and all the abiotic factors that affect it (e.g., water temperature, light availability).
- A biome is a large group of ecosystems that share the same climate and have similar types of communities.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Organize objects or organisms into levels of hierarchy.
- Develop a hierarchical classification model using standard language and parameters.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- In order to study relationships within the biosphere, it is divided into smaller levels of organization.
- The simplest level of organization is the organism, with increasing levels of complexity as the numbers and interactions between organisms increase, shown in the population, biological community, ecosystem, and biome until reaching the most complex level of the biosphere.
Vocabulary
- Ecology
- Biosphere
- Biotic factor
- Abiotic factor
- Population
- Biological community
- Ecosystem
- Biome
- Species
