• Make a quantitative and/or qualitative claim regarding the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

• Construct and revise 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.

• Apply scientific ideas, principles, and/or evidence to provide an explanation of phenomena and solve design problems, taking into account possible unanticipated effects.

• Apply scientific reasoning, theory, and/or models to link evidence to the claims to assess the extent to which the reasoning and data support the explanation or conclusion.

• Design, evaluate, and/or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized.

Performance Standards

• HS-LS1 – FROM MOLECULES TO ORGANISMS: STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

  • HS-LS1-5: Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.

  • HS-LS1-6: Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for how carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from sugar molecules may combine with other elements to form amino acids and/or other large carbon-based molecules.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• LS4: BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION: UNITY AND DIVERSITY

  • LS4.B: Natural Selection

    • Natural selection occurs only if there is both (1) variation in the genetic information between organisms in a population and (2) variation in the expression of that genetic information—that is, trait variation—that leads to differences in performance among individuals.

    • The traits that positively affect survival are more likely to be reproduced, and thus are more common in the population.

  • LS4.C: Adaptation

    • Evolution is a consequence of the interaction of four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for an environment’s limited supply of the resources that individuals need in order to survive and reproduce, and (4) the ensuing proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in that environment.

    • Natural selection leads to adaptation, that is, to a population dominated by organisms that are anatomically, behaviorally, and physiologically well suited to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. That is, the differential survival and reproduction of organisms in a population that have an advantageous heritable trait leads to an increase in the proportion of individuals in future generations that have the trait and to a decrease in the proportion of individuals that do not.

    • Adaptation also means that the distribution of traits in a population can change when conditions change.

    • Changes in the physical environment, whether naturally occurring or human induced, have thus contributed to the expansion of some species, the emergence of new distinct species as populations diverge under different conditions, and the decline–and sometimes the extinction–of some species.

    • Species become extinct because they can no longer survive and reproduce in their altered environment. If members cannot adjust to change that is too fast or drastic, the opportunity for the species’ evolution is lost.

Performance Standards

• None for Chemistry

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• PS1: MATTER AND ITS INTERACTIONS

  • PS1.C: Nuclear Processes

    • Nuclear processes, including fusion, fission, and radioactive decays of unstable nuclei, involve release or absorption of energy. The total number of neutrons plus protons does not change in any nuclear process. (HS-PS1-8)

    • Spontaneous radioactive decays follow a characteristic exponential decay law. Nuclear lifetimes allow radiometric dating to be used to determine the ages of rocks and other materials.

Performance Standards

• None for Physics

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• PS3: ENERGY

  • PS3.B: Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer

    • Conservation of energy means that the total change of energy in any system is always equal to the total energy transferred into or out of the system.

    • Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transported from one place to another and transferred between systems.

    • Mathematical expressions, which quantify how the stored energy in a system depends on its configuration (e.g. relative positions of charged particles, compression of a spring) and how kinetic energy depends on mass and speed, allow the concept of conservation of energy to be used to predict and describe system behavior.

    • The availability of energy limits what can occur in any system.

    • Uncontrolled systems always evolve toward more stable states—that is, toward more uniform energy distribution (e.g., water flows downhill, objects hotter than their surrounding environment cool down).