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  • High School

    Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Evaluate the evidence for the role of group behavior on individual and species’ chances to survive and reproduce. HS-LS2-8

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Engaging in argument from evidence in 9–12 builds on K–8 experiences and progresses to using appropriate and sufficient evidence and scientific reasoning to defend and critique claims and explanations about the natural and designed world(s). Arguments may also come from current scientific or historical episodes in science.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • RST.11-12.1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to important distinctions the author makes and to any gaps or inconsistencies in the account. (HS-LS2-8)
  • RST.11-12.7 - Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., quantitative data, video, multimedia) in order to address a question or solve a problem. (HS-LS2-8)
  • RST.11-12.8 - Evaluate the hypotheses, data, analysis, and conclusions in a science or technical text, verifying the data when possible and corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information. (HS-LS2-8)
  • RST.9-10.8 - Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claim or a recommendation for solving a scientific or technical problem. (HS-LS2-8)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • Ocean Predators Feeding

    This BBC Earth 3.5 minute video may be used as a phenomenon to initiate student three-dimensional thinking about the role of group behavior on both individual and species survival. The video shows cooperative group feeding behavior in several oceanic ...

  • Birds Cooperating to Find Food and Raise Offspring

    This resource from PBS Learning Media includes a downloadable 4-minute video and a research article summary from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It supports students’ three-dimensional learning about the phenomenon of cooperation within differe ...

  • Prairie Dogs: America's Meerkats - Language

    This nine-minute video shows the phenomenon of prairie dog vocalizations to a variety of threats to their population. The video provides evidence, using sonograms and prairie dog behavioral responses, that each vocalization contains discrete pieces o ...

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Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.