Appendix item 2
CA State Science Content Standards
For grades 9-12:
Ecology
- Stability in an ecosystem is a balance between competing effects. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know bio diversity is the sum total of different kinds of organisms and is affected by alterations of habitats.
b. Students know how to analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from changes in climate, human activity, introduction of nonnative species, or changes in population size.
c. Students know how fluctuations in population size in an ecosystem are determined by the relative rates of birth, immigration, emigration, and death.
d. * Students know how to distinguish between the accommodation of an individual organism to its environment and the gradual adaptation of a lineage of organisms through genetic change.
Lessons three, four, five, six, and eight will address the above standards.
Investigation & Experimentation - Grades 9 To 12
- Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other four strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
a. Formulate explanations by using logic and evidence.
b. Recognize the cumulative nature of scientific evidence.
c. Analyze situations and solve problems that require combining and applying concepts from more than one area of science.
d. Investigate a science-based societal issue by researching the literature, analyzing data, and communicating the findings. Examples of issues include irradiation of food, cloning of animals by somatic cell nuclear transfer, choice of energy sources, and land and water use decisions in California.
Lessons two, six, seven, and nine will address the above standards.
Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry
- The bonding characteristics of carbon allow the formation of many different organic molecules of varied sizes, shapes, and chemical properties and provide the biochemical basis of life. As a basis for understanding this concept:
a. Students know large molecules (polymers), such as proteins, nucleic acids, and starch, are formed by repetitive combinations of simple subunits.
b. Students know the bonding characteristics of carbon that result in the formation of a large variety of structures ranging from simple hydrocarbons to complex polymers and biological molecules.
Lessons one, two, and nine will address the above standards.
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