Key Objectives:

• Design experiments that require asking questions, developing hypotheses, collecting data, interpreting data, and developing conclusions.

• Plan and conduct an investigation individually and collaboratively to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence, and in the design: decide on types, how much, and accuracy of data needed to produce reliable measurements and consider limitations on the precision of the data (e.g., number of trials, cost, risk, time), and refine the design accordingly.

• Use graphical techniques to describe data.

• Use mathematical and/or computational representations of phenomena or design solutions to support explanations.

• Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning behind currently accepted explanations or solutions to determine the merits of arguments.

• Apply concepts of statistics and probability (including determining function fits to data, slope, intercept, and correlation coefficient for linear fits) to scientific and engineering questions and problems, using digital tools when feasible.

• Critically review current literature about scientific topics.

• Practice formulating logical conclusions.

• Develop and use a model based on evidence to illustrate the relationships between systems or between components of a system.

• Construct an explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from a variety of sources (including students’ own investigations, models, theories, simulations, peer review) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Key Objectives:

• Describe and model the basic atomic structure.

• Use a model to illustrate that cellular respiration is a chemical process whereby the bonds of food molecules and oxygen molecules are broken and the bonds in new compounds are formed resulting in a net transfer of energy. 

• Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy. 

Suggested Activities & Resources:  

• PhET Digital Lab on Atoms Elements & Compounds

• Animal Digestion Lab

• Flow chart-type drawings of cellular respiration.

• Cellular Respiration Lab

• Africa Storyline and Homeostasis Storyline

• Flow chart-type drawings of photosynthesis.

• Understanding Photosynthesis Activity

Key Objectives:

• Recognize that cells use DNA to store information and manage cellular functions. 

• Describe the role of chromosomes in sex determination.

• Make and defend a claim based on evidence that inheritable genetic variations may result from: (a) new genetic combinations through meiosis, (b) viable errors occurring during replication, and/or (c) mutations caused by environmental factors.

• Apply concepts of statistics and probability to explain the variation and distribution of expressed traits in a population.

• Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the structure of DNA determines the structure of proteins which carry out the essential functions of life through systems of specialized cells.

• Explain how cell functions are regulated through changes in protein activity.

• Model and interpret basic Mendelian patterns of genetics using Punnett squares, and non-Mendelian patterns (e.g., incomplete, codominance, sex-linked traits).

Key Objectives:

• Utilize tools to categorize organisms (i.e., taxonomic keys, cladograms).

• Describe the characteristics of domains and kingdoms of organisms.

• Within each kingdom, describe how the anatomical characteristics can affect an organism’s survival.

• Explain the relationship between structure and function in major phyla.

• Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that feedback mechanisms maintain homeostasis.

• Describe classification based on evolutionary relationships.

• Describe the changes that have occurred over geologic time. 

• Chronicle the development of evolutionary theory by natural selection.

• Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence (homologous structures, embryology, DNA, adaptive radiation, fossil record).

• Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

• Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) the change in allele frequency within the population, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species. 

• Explain how variation within a species and natural selection could result in speciation or extinction.

• Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts on human activity on biodiversity.

• Explain how the diversity of life has arisen through evolutionary processes.

• Describe how variation within species is maintained over time through recombination and mutations of genes.

• Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.

• Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.