Browse All Standards

High School

Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Make and defend a claim based on evidence that inheritable genetic variations may result from: (1) new genetic combinations through meiosis, (2) viable errors occurring during replication, and/or (3) mutations caused by environmental factors. HS-LS3-2

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on using data to support arguments for the way variation occurs.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the phases of meiosis or the biochemical mechanism of specific steps in the process.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the phases of meiosis or the biochemical mechanism of specific steps in the process.

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.

Make and defend a claim based on evidence about the natural world that reflects scientific knowledge, and student-generated evidence. (HS-LS3-2)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS3.B:  Variation of Traits

In sexual reproduction, chromosomes can sometimes swap sections during the process of meiosis (cell division), thereby creating new genetic combinations and thus more genetic variation. Although DNA replication is tightly regulated and remarkably accurate, errors do occur and result in mutations, which are also a source of genetic variation. Environmental factors can also cause mutations in genes, and viable mutations are inherited. (HS-LS3-2)

Environmental factors also affect expression of traits, and hence affect the probability of occurrences of traits in a population. Thus the variation and distribution of traits observed depends on both genetic and environmental factors. (HS-LS3-2)

Crosscutting Concepts

Cause and Effect

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. (HS-LS3-2)

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-LS3-2)
  • WHST.9-12.1 - Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. (HS-LS3-2)
Mathematics
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (HS-LS3-2)