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3rd Grade

Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms. 3-LS3-1

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Patterns are the similarities and differences in traits shared between offspring and their parents, or among siblings. Emphasis is on organisms other than humans.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include genetic mechanisms of inheritance and prediction of traits. Assessment is limited to non-human examples.

Science and Engineering Practices

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Analyzing data in 3–5 builds on K–2 experiences and progresses to introducing quantitative approaches to collecting data and conducting multiple trials of qualitative observations. When possible and feasible, digital tools should be used.

Analyze and interpret data to make sense of phenomena using logical reasoning. (3-LS3-1)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS3.A:  Inheritance of Traits

Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents. (3-LS3-1)

LS3.B:  Variation of Traits

Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information. (3-LS3-1)

Crosscutting Concepts

Patterns

Similarities and differences in patterns can be used to sort and classify natural phenomena. (3-LS3-1)

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy
  • RI.3.1 - Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers. (3-LS3-1)
  • RI.3.2 - Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea. (3-LS3-1)
  • RI.3.3 - Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. (3-LS3-1)
  • SL.3.4 - Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace. (3-LS3-1)
  • W.3.2 - Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. (3-LS3-1)
Mathematics
  • 3.MD.B.4 - Generate measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch. Show the data by making a line plot, where the horizontal scale is marked off in appropriate units— whole numbers, halves, or quarters. (3-LS3-1)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (3-LS3-1)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (3-LS3-1)