Browse All Standards

3rd Grade

Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change. 3-LS4-4

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Examples of environmental changes could include changes in land characteristics, water distribution, temperature, food, and other organisms.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to a single environmental change. Assessment does not include the greenhouse effect or climate change.

Science and Engineering Practices

Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Engaging in argument from evidence in 3–5 builds on K–2 experiences and progresses to critiquing the scientific explanations or solutions proposed by peers by citing relevant evidence about the natural and designed world(s).

Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem by citing relevant evidence about how it meets the criteria and constraints of the problem. (3-LS4-4)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS2.C:  Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience

When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die. (secondary to 3-LS4-4)

LS4.D:  Biodiversity and Humans

Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there. (3-LS4-4)

Crosscutting Concepts

Systems and System Models

A system can be described in terms of its components and their interactions. (3-LS4-4)

Connections to Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science

Interdependence of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Knowledge of relevant scientific concepts and research findings is important in engineering. (3-LS4-4)

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-LS4-4)
  • RI.3.2 - Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea. (3-LS4-4)
  • 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-LS4-4)
  • 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-LS4-4)
  • W.3.1 - Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons. (3-LS4-4)
  • W.3.2 - Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. (3-LS4-4)
Mathematics
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (3-LS4-4)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (3-LS4-4)