Observations and Models Module

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) addressed by this module include:

NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas

• HS-LS2 - Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics

• LS2.A - Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems

• LS2.C - Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience

• HS-LS4.D - Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity - Biodiversity and Humans

• HS-ESS2.D Earth’s Systems: Weather and Climate

• HS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity

• ESS3.A - Natural Resources

• ESS3.C - Human Impacts on Earth Systems

• ESS3.D - Global Climate Change

NGSS Science and Engineering Practices

• Developing and using models: students create simple models of temperature, interpret data from climate models, and use the VES-V model to study marine environments.

• Analyzing and interpreting data: students analyze data about temperature and climate models, berries from a garden, and marine organisms in the oceans.

• Using mathematics and computational thinking: students use interpolation in temperature models, sampling and extrapolation in the garden example, and graph interpretation in the VES-V examples.

• Engaging in argument from evidence: students make and justify claims about datasets being derived from observations or from models.

NGSS Crosscutting Concepts

• Scale, proportion, and quantity. In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.

• Systems and system models. Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.

• Stability and change. For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study