HS-LS2-2 | Biodiversity and Populations

Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

Clarification statement: Examples of mathematical representations could include finding the average, determining trends, and using graphical comparisons of multiple sets of data.

Assessment boundary: Assessment is limited to provided data.

Performance Level Descriptions

PLDs communicate the knowledge and skills expected of students to demonstrate proficiency in each Learning Standard. NYS assessments classify student performance into one of five levels.

Level 5Level 4Level 3Level 2Level 1

Use a mathematical representation to analyze, and/or apply mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

Use a mathematical representation to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

Use a mathematical representation to revise an explanation based on evidence about factor(s) affecting biodiversity and/or population(s) in ecosystem(s) of different scales.

Use a mathematical representation to support a given explanation by identifying evidence about factor(s) affecting biodiversity and/or population(s) in ecosystem(s).

Use a mathematical representation to identify a factor, from those provided, that affects biodiversity or populations in an ecosystem.

Resources

Examples and discussion of resources for the learning, teaching, and assessment of HS-LS2-2.

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Assessment

What assessment of HS-LS2-2 might look like on a NY state exam.

Coral Reefs Q3

NGSS Dimensions

Performance expectation HS-LS2-2 was developed using the following elements from the NRC document A Framework for K-12 Science Education:

Science and Engineering Practices

Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
- Use mathematical representations of phenomena or design solutions to support and revise explanations.
Scientific knowledge is open to revision in light of new evidence: Most scientific knowledge is quite durable, but is, in principle, subject to change based on new evidence and/or reinterpretation of existing evidence.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
- Ecosystems have carrying capacities, which are limits to the numbers of organisms and populations they can support. Organisms would have the capacity to produce populations of great size were it not for the fact that enviroments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension affects the abundance (number of individuals) of species in any given ecosystem.
- (NYSED) Carrying capacity results from the availability of biotic and abiotic factors and from challenges such as predation, competition, and disease.
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
- A complex set of interactions within an ecosystem can keep its numbers and types of organisms relatively constant over long periods of time under stable conditions. If a modest biological or physical disturbance to an ecosystem occurs, it may return to its more or less original status (i.e., the ecosystem is resilient), as opposed to becoming a very different ecosystem. Extreme fluctuations in conditions or the size of any population, however, can challenge the functioning of ecosystems in terms of resources and habitat availability.

Crosscutting Concepts

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
- Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale.

Page contributors: Conrad Richman, Caroline Leonard

Biology | HS. Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems