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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms resemble their parents and have structures and undergo processes that help them interact and survive within their environments.
the circumstances, objects, or conditions that surround an organism including abiotic (climate and soil) and biotic (living organisms) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival

an individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life

a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result; a continuing natural or biological activity or function
something arranged in a definite pattern of organization; the arrangement of particles or parts in a substance or body; the aggregate of elements of an entity in their relationships to each other

Research

Trundle, Kathy Cabe, Katherine N. Mollahan, and Mandy McCormick Smith. 2013. “Plants, Alike and Different.” Science and Children: Early Children Life Science 50, no. 6 (February 2013): 52–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43176365. Accessed November 17, 2022.

Summary: Students' curiosity about the natural world can be used to help guide life science instruction. "Plants, Alike and Different" explains that early elementary students should understand that parent plants look similar to their offspring. Teachers can use the Play, Discuss, Explore learning cycle to teach this concept in Kindergarten. Play is important because it allows students to practice different types of plants and generate questions. Students should observe different types of the same plant and look for similarities and differences. These observations can be recorded in the form of drawings. As a class with teacher guidance, these drawings can be used to create data charts where students can easily see the results.

Research

National Research Council. 2012. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13165.

Summary: Early elementary school students are expected to understand that all organisms have external parts, and each has specific functions that contribute to the health and survival of the organism. This article explains how the structures of an organism facilitate life functions such as growth and reproduction. This is built from the cell level up to the formation of systems that perform the essential functions to sustain life.