Grade 3 - 3-LS4 Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

NGSS 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.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity
• Some kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere. (Note: moved from K-2) (3-LS4-1)
• Fossils provide evidence about the types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of their environments. (3-LS4-1)
LS4.B: Natural Selection
• Sometimes the differences in characteristics between individuals of the same species provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing. (3-LS4-2)
LS4.C: Adaptation
• For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. (3-LS4-3)
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)
Performance Expectations Students who demonstrate understanding can:
3-LS4-1. Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.
3-LS4-2. Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing.
3-LS4-3. Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
3-LS4-4. 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.*