BIO.13.B — Vertical Alignment
Vertical alignment shows student expectations in the same subject area at different grade levels that are related to or build upon one another.
identify and illustrate how living organisms depend on each other through food chains.
create and describe food chains identifying producers and consumers to demonstrate how animals depend on other living things; and
identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain and predict how changes in a food chain such as removal of frogs from a pond or bees from a field affect the ecosystem;
describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy through food webs, including the roles of the Sun, producers, consumers, and decomposers; and
predict how changes in the ecosystem affect the cycling of matter and flow of energy in a food web; and
describe and give examples of predatory, competitive, and symbiotic relationships between organisms, including mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism; and
diagram the flow of energy within trophic levels and describe how the available energy decreases in successive trophic levels in energy pyramids; and
describe how ecosystems are sustained by the continuous flow of energy and the recycling of matter and nutrients within the biosphere.
explain how disruptions such as population changes, natural disasters, and human intervention impact the transfer of energy in food webs in ecosystems;
BIO.13.B
analyze how ecosystem stability is affected by disruptions to the cycling of matter and flow of energy through trophic levels using models;
AQUA.7.A
identify how energy flows and matter cycles through both freshwater and marine aquatic systems, including food webs, chains, and pyramids;
AQUA.8.C
use data from short-term or long-term studies to analyze interrelationships between producers, consumers, and decomposers in aquatic ecosystems.
ENVIR.5.E
use models to predict how the introduction of an invasive species may alter the food chain and affect existing populations in an ecosystem;
ENVIR.5.F
use models to predict how species extinction may alter the food chain and affect existing populations in an ecosystem; and
ENVIR.7.D
identify and describe how energy is used, transformed, and conserved as it flows through ecosystems.