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.
When resources are scarce (cause), there is competition among organisms for that resource, and some organisms will thrive while others perish (effect).
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.
Within a food web (system), organisms (parts) compete for biotic resources, such as predators competing for prey. Within an ecosystem (system), organisms (parts) may have symbiotic relationships in which one or both organisms benefit and one or neither is harmed.
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. Energy flows from one organism to another through matter consumption via predator-prey relationships.