SC15.ES.5

Science (2015) Grade(s): 09-12 - Environmental Science

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Cause and Effect

Students know:

Appropriate and sufficient evidence and scientific reasoning must be used to defend and critique claims and explanations.
The difference between group and individual behavior.
Examples and descriptions of social interactions and group behavior, including but not limited to: flocking, schooling, herding, and cooperative behaviors like hunting, migrating, and swarming.

Students are able to:

Evaluate scientific and/or technical information from multiple reliable sources to determine how individual behavior and group behavior affect a species' chance to survive and reproduce.
Assess the validity, reliability, strengths, and weaknesses of the evidence.
Identify evidence for causal relationships between specific group behaviors (e.g., schooling, herding, migrating, swarming, flocking) and individual survival and reproduction rates.
Evaluate the evidence for the degree to which it supports a causal claim that group behavior can have a survival advantage for some species, including how the evidence allows for distinguishing between causal and correlational relationships as well as how it supports cause and effect relationships between various kinds of group behavior and individual survival rates.

Students understand that:

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.
Group behavior can increase the chances for an individual and a species to survive and reproduce.
Group behavior has evolved because membership can increase the changes of survival for individuals and their genetic relatives.