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Middle School

Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem. MS-LS2-3

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on describing the conservation of matter and flow of energy into and out of various ecosystems, and on defining the boundaries of the system.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include the use of chemical reactions to describe the processes.

Science and Engineering Practices

Developing and Using Models

Modeling in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to developing, using, and revising models to describe, test, and predict more abstract phenomena and design systems.

Develop a model to describe phenomena. (MS-LS2-3)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS2.B:  Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems

Food webs are models that demonstrate how matter and energy is transferred between producers, consumers, and decomposers as the three groups interact within an ecosystem. Transfers of matter into and out of the physical environment occur at every level. Decomposers recycle nutrients from dead plant or animal matter back to the soil in terrestrial environments or to the water in aquatic environments. The atoms that make up the organisms in an ecosystem are cycled repeatedly between the living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem. (MS-LS2-3)

Crosscutting Concepts

Energy and Matter

The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a natural system. (MS-LS2-3)

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy
  • SL.8.5 - Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest. (MS-LS2-3)
Mathematics
  • 6.EE.C.9 - Use variables to represent two quantities in a real-world problem that change in relationship to one another; write an equation to express one quantity, thought of as the dependent variable, in terms of the other quantity, thought of as the independent variable. Analyze the relationship between the dependent and independent variables using graphs and tables, and relate these to the equation. (MS-LS2-3)