MS-ESS3-3

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Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Clarification statement: Examples of the design process could include examining human environmental impacts, assessing the kinds of solutions that are feasible, and designing and evaluating solutions that could reduce that impact. Examples of human impacts could include water usage (such as the withdrawal of water from streams and aquifers or the construction of dams and levees), land usage (such as urban development, agriculture, or the removal of wetlands), and pollution (such as of the air, water, or land).

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 4Level 3Level 2Level 1

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment and identify constraints of the designed method.

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Given the design of a method that monitors and minimizes a human impact on the environment, identify one positive or one negative impact of the design.

Identify how a given design method that monitors a human impact on the environment could minimize a human impact on the environment.

Resources

Examples and discussion of resources for the learning, teaching, and assessment of MS-ESS3-3.

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Assessment

What assessment of MS-ESS3-3 might look like on a NY state exam.

• Reservoirs an Town Water Districts Q17

NGSS Dimensions

Performance expectation MS-ESS3-3 was developed using the following elements from the NRC document A Framework for K-12 Science Education:

Science and Engineering Practices

• Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
  • Apply scientific principles to design an object, tool, process or system.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

• ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems
  • Human activities have significantly altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural habitats and causing the extinction of other species. But changes to Earth’s environments can have different impacts (negative and positive) for different living things.
  • Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise.

Crosscutting Concepts

• Cause and Effect
  • Relationships can be classified as causal or correlational, and correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Connections to Other Standards

MS-ESS3-3 connections to ELA, math, and other science standards as outlined by the NYS Education Department:

Page contributors: Caroline Leonard, Conrad Richman, Shirley Shameen

MS | MS. Human Impacts