Embedded Files
Performance Expectations:
Performance Expectations:
In the third grade performance expectations, students are expected to demonstrate grade-appropriate proficiency in asking questions and defining problems; developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining evaluating, and communicating information. Students are expected to use these practices to demonstrate understanding of the core ideas.
NGSS Summary:
NGSS Summary:
The performance expectations in third grade help students formulate answers to questions such as: What is typical weather in different parts of the world and during different times of the year? How can the impact of weather-related hazards be reduced? How do organisms vary in their traits? How are plants, animals, and environments of the past similar or different from current plants, animals, and environments? What happens to organisms when their environment changes? How do equal and unequal forces on an object affect the object? How can magnets be used?
Disciplinary Core Ideas from NCR Framework:
Disciplinary Core Ideas from NCR Framework:
Third grade performance expectations include PS2, LS1, LS3, LS4, ESS2, and ESS3 Disciplinary Core Ideas from the NRC Framework. Students are able to organize and use data to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season. By applying their understanding of weather-related hazards, students are able to make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of such hazards. Students are expected to develop an understanding of the similarities and differences of the organisms’ life cycles. An understanding that organisms have different inherited traits, and that the environment can also affect the traits that an organism develops, is acquired by the students at this level. In addition, students are able to construct an explanation using evidence for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing.
Students are expected to develop an understanding of types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of the environments. Third graders are expected to develop an understanding of the idea that when the environment changes, some organisms survive and reproduce, some move to new locations, some move into the transformed environment, and some die. Students are able to determine the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object and the cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions to define a simple design problem that can be solved with magnets.
Crosscutting Concepts:
Crosscutting Concepts:
The crosscutting concepts of patterns: cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; interdependence of science, engineering and technology; and influence of engineering, technology and science on society and the natural world are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas.
These strands are not to be taught in a sequential order, but should be integrated throughout the year.
Life Science Concepts
Life Science Concepts
Core Ideas:
Core Ideas:
3-LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms
Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse life cycles. (3-LS1.1)
GLEs: SA.1-3; SC.1-3; SE.2; SF.1; SG.4; CS.D.3
3-LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
LS2.D: Social Interactions and Group Behavior
Being part of a group helps animals obtain food, defend themselves, and cope with changes. Groups may serve different functions and vary dramatically is size.
(3-LS2.1)
GLEs: SA.1-3; SC.1-3; SE.2; SF.1; SG.4; CS.D.3
3-LS3: Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits
LS3.A: Inheritance of Traits
Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents. (3-LS3.1)
Other characteristics result from individuals’ interactions with the environment, which can range from diet to learning. Many characteristics involve both inheritance and environment.
(3-LS3.2)
LS3.B: Variation of Traits
Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information.
(3-LS3.1)
The environment also affects the traits that an organism develops. (3-LS3.2)
GLEs: SA.1-3; SC.1-3; SE.2; SF.1; SG.4; CS.D.3
3-LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die. (Secondary to 3-LS4.4)
LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity
Some kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere. (3-LS4.1)
Fossils provide evidence about the types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of their environments. (3-LS4.1)
LS4.B: Natural Selection
Sometimes the differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing. (3-LS4.2)
LS4.C: Adaptation
For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
(3-LS4.3)
LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans
Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there. (3-LS4.4)
GLEs: SA.1-3; SC.1-3; SE.2; SF.1; SG.4; CS.D.3
Performance Expectations:
Performance Expectations:
Students who demonstrate understanding will:
3-LS1.1: Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction, and death. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment of plant life cycles Is limited to those of flowering plants. Assessment does not include details of human reproduction.]
S-LS2.1: Construct an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive.
3-LS3.1: Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include genetic mechanisms of inheritance and prediction of traits. Assessment is limited to non-human examples.]
3-LS3.2: Use evidence to support the explanation that traits can be influenced by the environment.
3-LS4.1: Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include identification of specific fossils or present plants and animals. Assessment is limited to major fossil types and relative ages.]
3-LS4.2: Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing.
3-LS4.3: Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
3-LS4.4: Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to a single environmental change. Assessment does not include the greenhouse effect or climate change.]
Suggested Explorations:
Suggested Explorations:
Model plant life cycles of lowering plants.
Show how the changes of organisms go through in their lives forms a pattern.
Use information gained from illustration and the words in a text to model a life cycle.
Model with mathematics.
Engage in an argument from evidence.
Construct an argument with evidence, data, and/or a model.
Patterns are the similarities and differences in traits shared between offspring and their parents, or among siblings. Emphasis is on organisms other than humans.
Examples of the environment affecting a trait could include normally tall plants grown with insufficient water are stunted; and a pet dog that is given too much food and little exercise may become overweight.
Examples of data could include type, size, and distributions of fossil organisms.
Examples of fossils and environments could include marine fossils found on dry land, tropical plant fossils found in Arctic areas, and fossils of extinct organisms.
Examples of cause and effect relationships could be plants that have larger thorns than other plants may be less likely to be eaten by predators; and animals that have better camouflage coloration than other animals may be more likely to survive and therefore, more likely to leave offspring.
Examples of evidence could include needs and characteristics of the organisms and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitat make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.
Examples of environmental changes could include changes in land characteristics, water distribution, temperature, food, and other organisms.
Physical Science Concepts
Physical Science Concepts
Core Ideas:
Core Ideas:
3-PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
PS2-A: Forces and Motion
Each force acts on one particular object and has both strength and a direction. An object at rest typically has multiple forces acting on it, but they add to give zero net force on the object. Forces that do not sum to zero can cause changes in the object’s speed or direction of motion.
(3-PS2.1)
The patterns of an object’s motion in various situations can be observed and measured; when that past motion exhibits a regular pattern, future motion can be predicted from it. (3-PS2.2)
PS2-B: Types of Interactions
Objects in contact exert forces on each other. (3-PS2.1)
Electric and magnetic forces between a pair of objects do not require that the objects be in contact. The sizes of the forces in each situation depend on the properties of the objects and their distances apart and, for forces between two magnets, on their orientation relative to each other.
(3-PS2.3-4)
GLEs: SA.1; SB.2-3; SE.1-2
Performance Expectations:
Performance Expectations:
Students who demonstrate understanding will:
3-PS2.1: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to one variable at a time: number, size, or direction of forces. Assessment does not include quantitative force size, only qualitative and relative. Assessment is limited to gravity being addressed as a force that pulls objects down.]
3-PS2.2: Make observations and/or measurements of an object’s motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future motion. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include technical terms such as period and frequency.]
3-PS2.3: Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to forces produced by objects that can be manipulated by students, and electrical interactions are limited to static electricity.]
3-PS2.4: Define a simple design problem that can be solved by applying scientific ideas about magnets.
Suggested Explorations:
Suggested Explorations:
An example could include an unbalanced force on one side of a ball can make it start moving; and balanced forces pushing on a box from both sides will not produce any motion at all.
An example of motion with a predictable pattern could include a child swinging in a swing, a ball rolling back and forth in a bowl, and two children on a see-saw.
An example of an electric force could include the force on hair from an electrically charged balloon and the electrical forces between a charged rod and pieces of paper; an example of a magnetic force could include the force between two permanent magnets, the force between an electromagnet and steel paperclips, and the force exerted by one magnet versus the force exerted by two magnets. An example of cause and effect relationships could include how the distance between objects affects strength of the force and how the orientation of magnets affects the direction of the magnetic force.
Ask questions to define problems. Plan and carry out investigations.
Earth and Space Science Concepts
Earth and Space Science Concepts
Core Ideas:
Core Ideas:
3-ESS2: Earth’s Systems
ESS2.D: Weather and Climate
Scientists record patterns of the weather across different times and areas so that they can make predictions about what kind of weather might happen next.
(3-ESS2.1)
Climate describes a range of an area’s typical weather conditions and the extent to which those conditions vary over years. (3-ESS2.2)
GLEs: SD.1-2; SF.2; CS.B.4
3-ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
ESS3.B: Natural Hazards
A variety of natural hazards result from natural processes. Humans cannot eliminate natural hazards but can take steps to reduce their impacts. (3-ESS3.1)
GLEs: SB.3; SD.2-3
Performance Expectations:
Performance Expectations:
Students who demonstrate understanding will:
3-ESS2.1: Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season. [Assessment Boundary: Assessment of graphical displays is limited to pictographs and bar graphs. Assessment does not include climate change.]
3-ESS2.2: Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world.
3-ESS3.1: Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard.
Suggested Explorations:
Suggested Explorations:
Examples of data could include average temperature, precipitation, and wind direction.
Examples of design solutions to weather-related hazards could include barriers to prevent flooding, wind resistant roofs, and lightning rods.
Page updated
Report abuse