Animal Architects

Inherited and Environmental Traits

3rd Grade

Animals have traits that are inherited and can be influenced by the environment.

Define a simple design problem that can be solved through the development of an object, tool, process, or system and includes several criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

• Identify limitations of models.

• Collaboratively develop and/or revise a model based on evidence that shows the relationships among variables for frequent and regular occurring events.

• Make predictions about what would happen if a variable changes.

• Test two different models of the same proposed object, tool, or process to determine which better meets criteria for success.

• Analyze and interpret data to make sense of phenomena, using logical reasoning, mathematics, and/or computation.

• Analyze data to refine a problem statement or the design of a proposed object, tool, or process.

• Use data to evaluate and refine design solutions.

• Use evidence (e.g., measurements, observations, patterns) to construct or support an explanation or design a solution to a problem.

• Identify the evidence that supports particular points in an explanation.

• Respectfully provide and receive critiques from peers about a proposed procedure, explanation, or model by citing relevant evidence and posing specific questions.

• Construct and/or support an argument with evidence, data, and/or a model.

• Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem by citing relevant evidence about how it meets the criteria and constraints of the problem.

• Read and comprehend grade appropriate complex texts and/or other reliable media to summarize and obtain scientific and technical ideas and describe how they are supported by evidence.

• Combine information in written text with that contained in corresponding tables, diagrams, and/or charts to support the engagement in other scientific and/or engineering practices.

• Communicate scientific and/or technical information orally and/or in written formats, including various forms of media as well as tables, diagrams, and charts.

Students identify similarities and differences in order to sort and classify natural objects and designed products. They identify patterns related to time, including simple rates of change and cycles, and to use these patterns to make predictions.

Students routinely identify and test causal relationships and use these relationships to explain change. They understand events that occur together with regularity might or might not signify a cause and effect relationship.

Organisms have both internal and external macroscopic structures that allow for growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.

Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information; the environment also affects the traits that an organism develops.

Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information; the environment also affects the traits that an organism develops.