• Evaluate merits and limitations of two different models of the same proposed tool, process, mechanism or system in order to select or revise a model that best fits the evidence or design criteria.

• Design a test of a model to ascertain its reliability.

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

• Develop and/or use multiple types of models to provide mechanistic accounts and/or predict phenomena, and move flexibly between model types based on merits and limitations.

• Develop a complex model that allows for manipulation and testing of a proposed process or system.

• Develop and/or use a model (including mathematical and computational) to generate data to support explanations, predict phenomena, analyze systems, and/or solve problems

Performance Standards

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

  • HS-LS1-2: Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.

  • HS-LS1-4: Use a model to illustrate the role of cellular division (mitosis) and differentiation in producing and maintaining complex organisms.

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

  • HS-LS1-7: 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.

• HS-LS2 – ECOSYSTEMS: INTERACTIONS, ENERGY, AND DYNAMICS

  • HS-LS2-5: Develop a model to illustrate the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the cycling of carbon among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• LS1: FROM MOLECULES TO ORGANISMS: STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

  • LS1.A: Structure and Function

    • Systems of specialized cells within organisms help them perform the essential functions of life.

    • All cells contain genetic information in the form of DNA molecules. Genes are regions in the DNA that contain the instructions that code for the formation of proteins.

    • Multicellular organisms have a hierarchical structural organization, in which any one system is made up of numerous parts and is itself a component of the next level.

    • Feedback mechanisms maintain a living system’s internal conditions within certain limits and mediate behaviors, allowing it to remain alive and functional even as external conditions change within some range. Feedback mechanisms can encourage (through positive feedback) or discourage (negative feedback) what is going on inside the living system.

  • LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms

    • In multicellular organisms individual cells grow and then divide via a process called mitosis, thereby allowing the organism to grow. The organism begins as a single cell (fertilized egg) that divides successively to produce many cells, with each parent cell passing identical genetic material (two variants of each chromosome pair) to both daughter cells. Cellular division and differentiation produce and maintain a complex organism, composed of systems of tissues and organs that work together to meet the needs of the whole organism.

• LS2: ECOSYSTEMS: INTERACTIONS, ENERGY, AND DYNAMICS

  • LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

    • Ecosystems have carrying capacities, which are limits to the numbers of organisms and populations they can support. These limits result from such factors as the availability of living and nonliving resources and from such challenges such as predation, competition, and disease. Organisms would have the capacity to produce populations of great size were it not for the fact that environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension affects the abundance (number of individuals) of species in any given ecosystem.

  • LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience

    • A complex set of interactions within an ecosystem can keep its numbers and types of organisms relatively constant over long periods of time under stable conditions. If a modest biological or physical disturbance to an ecosystem occurs, it may return to its more or less original status (i.e., the ecosystem is resilient), as opposed to becoming a very different ecosystem. Extreme fluctuations in conditions or the size of any population, however, can challenge the functioning of ecosystems in terms of resources and habitat availability.

    • Moreover, anthropogenic changes (induced by human activity) in the environment—including habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change—can disrupt an ecosystem and threaten the survival of some species.

Performance Standards

• HS-PS1 – MATTER AND ITS INTERACTIONS

  • HS-PS1-4: Develop a model to illustrate that the release or absorption of energy from a chemical reaction system depends upon the changes in total bond energy.

  • HS-PS1-8: Develop models to illustrate the changes in the composition of the nucleus of the atom and the energy released during the processes of fission, fusion, and radioactive decay.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• PS1: MATTER AND ITS INTERACTIONS

  • PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter

    • Each atom has a charged substructure consisting of a nucleus, which is made of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons. (HS-PS1-1)

    • The periodic table orders elements horizontally by the number of protons in the atom’s nucleus and places those with similar chemical properties in columns. The repeating patterns of this table reflect patterns of outer electron states. (HS-PS1-1), (HS-PS1-2) (Note: This Disciplinary Core Idea is also addressed by HS-PS1-1.)

    • The structure and interactions of matter at the bulk scale are determined by electrical forces within and between atoms. (HS-PS1-3)

    • Stable forms of matter are those in which the electric and magnetic field energy is minimized. A stable molecule as less energy than the same set of atoms separated; one must provide at least this energy in order to take the molecule apart.

• PS4: WAVES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN TECHNOLOGIES FOR INFORMATION TRANSFER

  • PS4.B: Electromagnetic Radiation

    • Electromagnetic radiation (e.g., radio, microwaves, light) can be modeled as a wave of changing electric and magnetic fields or as particles called photons. The wave model is useful for explaining many features of electromagnetic radiation, and the particle model explains other features.

    • When light or longer wavelength electromagnetic radiation is absorbed in matter, it is generally converted into thermal energy (heat). Shorter wavelength electromagnetic radiation (ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays) can ionize atoms and cause damage to living cells.

    • Photoelectric materials emit electrons when they absorb light of a high-enough frequency.

    • Atoms of each element emit and absorb characteristic frequencies of light. These characteristics allow identification of the presence of an element, even in microscopic quantities.

Performance Standards

• HS-PS3 – ENERGY

  • HS-PS3-1: Create a computational model to calculate the change in the energy of one component in a system when the change in energy of the other component(s) and energy flows in and out of the system are known.

  • HS-PS3-2: Develop and use models to illustrate that energy at the macroscopic scale can be accounted for as a combination of energy associated with the motions of particles (objects) and energy associated with the relative position of particles (objects).

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• PS2: MOTION AND STABILITY: FORCES AND INTERACTIONS

  • PS2.A: Forces and Motion

    • Newton’s second law accurately predicts changes in the motion of macroscopic objects.

    • Momentum is defined for a particular frame of reference; it is the mass times the velocity of the object. In any system, total momentum is always conserved.

    • If a system interacts with objects outside itself, the total momentum of the system can change; however, any such change is balanced by changes in the momentum of objects outside the system.

  • PS2.B: Types of Interactions

    • Newton’s law of universal gravitation and Coulomb’s law provide the mathematical models to describe and predict the effects of gravitational and electrostatic forces between distant objects.

    • Forces at a distance are explained by fields (gravitational, electric, and magnetic) permeating space that can transfer energy through space. Magnets or electric currents cause magnetic fields; electric charges or changing magnetic fields cause electric fields.

    • Attraction and repulsion between electric charges at the atomic scale explain the structure, properties, and transformations of matter, as ell as the contact forces between material objects. (HS-PS1-1), (secondary to HS-PS1-3)

• PS3: ENERGY

  • PS3.C: Relationship Between Energy and Forces

    • When two objects interacting through a field change relative position, the energy stored in the field is changed.