Benchmarks Covered:

• N.1.1 (High) - Define a problem based on a specific body of knowledge in Biology and do the following:

  • Pose questions about the natural world

  • Conduct systematic observations

  • Examine books and other sources of information to see what is already known

  • Plan investigations

  • Use tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data

  • Pose answers, explanations, or descriptions of events

  • Generate explanations that describe natural phenomena (inferences)

  • Use appropriate evidence and reasoning to justify these explanations to others

  • Communicate results of scientific investigations

  • Evaluate the merits of the explanations produced by others.

• N.1.3 (Low) - Recognize that the strength or usefulness of a scientific claim is evaluated through scientific argumentation, which depends on critical and logical thinking, and the active consideration of alternative scientific explanations to explain the data presented.

• N.1.4 (High) - Identify sources of information and assess their reliability according to the strict standards of scientific investigation.

• N.1.6 (Moderate) - Describe how scientific inferences are drawn from scientific observations and provide examples from the content being studied.

• N.2.1 (High) - Identify what is science, what clearly is not science, and what superficially resembles science (but fails to meet the criteria of science).

• N.2.2 - Identify which questions can be answered through science and which questions are outside the boundaries of scientific investigation, such as questions addressed by other ways of knowing, such as arts, philosophy, and religions.

• N.3.1 (High) - Explain that a scientific theory is the culmination of many scientific investigations drawing together at the current evidence concerning a substantial range of phenomena; thus, a scientific theory represents the most powerful explanation scientists have to offer.

• N.3.4 (Moderate) - Recognize that theories do not become laws, nor do laws become theories; theories are well supported explanations and laws are well supported descriptions.

• L.14.4 (Moderate) - Compare and contrast structure and function of various types of microscopes