HS-LS4-3 | Natural Selection and Traits
Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.
Clarification statement: Emphasis is on analyzing shifts in numerical distribution of traits and using these shifts as evidence to support explanations.
Assessment boundary: Assessment is limited to basic statistical and graphical analysis. Assessment does not include allele frequency calculations.
Assessment
What assessment of HS-LS4-3 might look like on a NY state exam.
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.
Vocabulary
Terms from the Biology Glossary that come from this standard or from the released exam questions that assess it.
- adaptation
- advantageous heritable trait
- allele
- correlation (versus cause)
- differential survival and reproduction
- environmental factor
- frequency
- generation
- genetic information
- heritable trait
- natural selection
- population
- population shift
- probability
- proportion
- statistics
- survival
- trait
- trend
- variation
- breeding – Jan 2026
- claim – June 2025
- Colorado – June 2025
- coloration – Aug 2026
- disease – June 2025
- fluctuation – June 2025
- infection – June 2025
- invasive species – Jan 2026
- investigation – Aug 2026
- larva – Jan 2026
- mammal – June 2025
- pest – Jan 2026
- pesticide – Jan 2026
- plague (Sylvatic Plague) – June 2025
- predation – Aug 2026
- predator – Aug 2026
- resistance (to a pesticide or treatment) – Jan 2026
- survivorship curve – Aug 2025
- fitness – implied by "anatomically, behaviorally, and physiologically well suited to survive and reproduce in a specific environment"
Resources
Examples and discussion of resources for the learning, teaching, and assessment of HS-LS4-3.
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NGSS Dimensions
Performance expectation HS-LS4-3 was developed using the following elements from the NRC document A Framework for K-12 Science Education:
- Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Apply concepts of statistics and probability (including determining function fits to data, slope, intercept, and correlation coefficient for linear fits) to scientific and engineering questions and problems, using digital tools when feasible.
- LS4.B: Natural Selection
- Natural selection occurs only if there is both (1) variation in the genetic information between organisms in a population and (2) variation in the expression of that genetic information – that is, trait variation – that leads to differences in performance among individuals.
- The traits that positively affect survival are more likely to be reproduced and thus are more common in the population.
- LS4.C: Adaptation
- Natural selection leads to adaptation that is, to a population dominated by organisms that are anatomically, behaviorally, and physiologically well suited to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. That is, the differential survival and reproduction of organisms in a population that have an advantageous heritable trait leads to an increase in the proportion of individuals in future generations that have the trait and to a decrease in the proportion of individuals that do not.
- Adaptation also means that the distribution of traits in a population can change when conditions change.
- Patterns
- Different patterns may be observed at each of the scales at which a system is studied and can provide evidence for causality in explanations of phenomena.