Teachers

Standards and Assessment

Standards:

Grade 9-12 Science 

Ecology

6. Stability in an ecosystem is a balance between competing effects. As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:

a. biodiversity is the sum total of different kinds of organisms, and is affected by alterations of habitats.

b. how to analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from changes in climate, human activity, introduction of non-native species, or changes in population size. 

                    e. a vital part of an ecosystem is the stability of its producers and decomposers.

f. at each link in a food web, some energy is stored in newly made structures but much is dissipated into the environment as heat and this can be represented in a food pyramid.

g. how to distinguish between the accommodation of an individual organism to its environment and the gradual adaptation of a lineage of organisms through genetic change.

Investigation and Experimentation

1. Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept, and to address the content the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and performing investigations. Students will:

a. select and use appropriate tools and technology (such as computer-linked probes, spread sheets, and graphing calculators) to perform tests, collect data, analyze relationships, and display data.

            d. formulate explanations using logic and evidence.

h. read and interpret topographic and geologic maps.

i. analyze the locations, sequences, or time intervals of natural phenomena (e.g., relative ages of rocks, locations of planets over time, and succession of species in an ecosystem).

k. recognize the cumulative nature of scientific evidence.

l. analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts from more than one area of science.

Assessment:

Rubrics for multimedia projects:

http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rub.mmproj.htm    

http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rub.senst.htm

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