A student expectation is directly related to the knowledge and skills statement, is more specific about how students demonstrate their learning, and always begins with a verb. Student expectations are further broken down into their component parts, often referred to as “breakouts.”
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
Cause-and-effect relationships are relationships between two or more variables or phenomena whereby one variable or event leads to a predictable response. Events have causes—sometimes simple, sometimes multi-faceted.
Identify changes to an ecosystem (cause) and predict the effects of change on the other organisms in that ecosystem.
A system is a whole made of parts that work together. It has components and boundaries. It can interact with or be part of other systems.
The arrows in a food web communicate the relationships among organisms (parts) and how matter is cycled and energy flows through the ecosystem (system). Changes to the ecosystem can disrupt those relationships.
Matter and energy are conserved, changing forms but maintaining quantities. Energy flows within a system or between systems through transfers and transformations. Matter is cycled within systems through physical and chemical processes.
A food web models how energy flows between and among the organisms in an ecosystem. A change to the ecosystem, such as a drought, impacts the number of producers, reducing the number of herbivores that the ecosystem can sustain. This alters the cycling of matter because fewer organisms are consumed and the flow of energy because fewer producers use the Sun's energy to make food.
Stability describes a system that does not change at the observed scale. In a stable system, a small disturbance will die out and the system will return to a stable state. Change in the system can come from modifying a factor or condition.
A healthy and sustainable ecosystem is stable. An event (change) that kills all the decomposers, for example, negatively impacts the stability of the ecosystem by altering the cycling of matter.
Math.5.1.A apply mathematics to problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace
ELAR.5.6.F make inferences and use evidence to support understanding
ELAR.5.6.H synthesize information to create new understanding
TA.5.1.B identify patterns in real-world problems and make predictions based on the pattern