Grade Two through Grade 12
The United States is a country rich in biodiversity. Come along as we explore our nation’s unique wildlife and ecosystems highlighting natural treasures across the U.S. from the frozen Arctic to the Florida wetlands and habitats in between.
Standards Addressed by this Topic:
Earth and Space Sciences
Benchmark C (3-5)
Describe Earth's resources including rocks, soil, water, air, animals and plants and the ways in which they can be conserved.
5. Explain how the supply of many non-renewable resources is limited and can be extended through reducing, reusing and recycling but cannot be extended indefinitely.
Life Sciences
Benchmark A (K-2)
Discover that there are living things, non-living things and pretend things, and
describe the basic needs of living things.
Grade Two Indicator
1. Explain that animals, including people, need air, water, food, living space and shelter; plants need air, water, nutrients.
Benchmark B (K-2)
Explain how organisms function and interact with their physical environment.
Grade Two Indicators
2. Identify that there are many distinct environments that support different kinds of organisms.
7. Compare the habitats of many different kinds of Ohio plants and animals and some of the ways animals depend on plants and each other.
Benchmark A (3-5)
Differentiate between the life cycles of different plants and animals.
Grade Four Indicator
5. Describe how organisms interact with one another in various ways.
Benchmark B (3-5)
Analyze plant and animal structures and functions needed for survival and describe the flow of energy through a system that all organisms use to survive.
Grade Three Indicator
2. Relate animal structures to their specific survival functions.
Benchmark C (3-5)
Compare changes in an organism's ecosystem/habitat that affect its survival.
Grade Three Indicator
6. Describe how changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful.
Grade Five Indicator
4. Summarize that organisms can survive only in ecosystems in which their needs can be met (e.g., food, water, shelter, air, carrying capacity and waste disposal). The world has different ecosystems and distinct ecosystems support the lives of different types of organisms.
Benchmark B (6-8)
Describe the characteristics of an organism in terms of a combination of inherited traits and recognize reproduction as a characteristic of living organisms essential to the continuation of the species.
Grade Seven Indicator
8. Investigate the great diversity among organisms.
Benchmark C (6-8)
Explain how energy entering the ecosystems as sunlight supports the life of organisms through photosynthesis and the transfer of energy through the interactions of organisms and the environment.
Grade Six Indicator
8. Describe how organisms may interact with one another.
Science and Technology
Benchmark A
Give examples of how technological advances, influenced by scientific knowledge, affect the quality of life.
Grade Six Indicator
2. Explain how decisions about the use of products and systems can result in desirable or undesirable consequences.