High School Curriculum
High school is a very different world for students and for educators. Teachers must find a path that bridges the material that was taught in middle school with what their students will need to know for life beyond high school. More Info
Biology
Science and Global Issues: Biology, Evolution
19-34 (4-7 weeks)
Unit issue: Human activity can have evolutionary consequences for both biodiversity and ourselves.
Overarching question: How do human activities affect the evolution of other species, and what are the consequences for both biodiversity and for ourselves?
Students are introduced to the issue for this unit by considering infectious diseases. Students begin by considering tuberculosis, a disease that has a long shared evolutionary history with humans. They learn that the rate at which new diseases are evolving is increasing. Students’ initial ideas and questions about the emergence of infectious diseases are elicited. Students also begin to consider how human activity may be affecting this evolutionary process and thereby affecting the three pillars of sustainability.
Performance Expectations
HS-LS2-7: Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
HS-LS2-8: Evaluate the evidence for the role of group behavior on individual and species’ chances to survive and reproduce.
HS-LS4-1: Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence.
HS-LS4-2: Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily
results from four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.
HS-LS4-3: 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.
HS-LS4-4: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.
HS-LS 4-5: Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.
HS-LS4-6: Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.
HS-ETS1-3: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
HS-ETS1-4: Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex
real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
Content in Science and Global Issues: Biology, Evolution is organized into activities, as follows:
| Activity Title | Activity Overview | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Changing Environments | Students analyze and interpret data on factors affecting the evolution of body size in marine iguanas. They engage in arguments from evidence for how a changing environment will affect marine iguana body size in the future. Students construct explanations about the evolution of body size in marine iguanas based on natural selection, adaptation, and social behavior. Working toward LS4-2, LS4-3, LS4-4, LS2-8 |
| 2. | Increasing Temperatures | Students investigate the effects of temperature on competition for resources among aquatic plants. Students analyze and interpret data and then use the data to explain that some individuals are better adapted to a particular environment than others are, leading to a proliferation of those adaptations in the population. Working toward LS4-2, LS4-3, LS4-4 |
| 3. | Social Behavior | Students analyze and interpret data on how other factors, especially biotic factors, lead to the proliferation of other kinds of traits, including social behavior. Students engage in argument from evidence on how alarm calls in prairie dogs are an example of one such trait. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS2-8. Assessing LS2-8 Working toward LS4-2, LS4-3, LS4-4 |
| 4. | Genetic Variation and Change | Students use a computer simulation to analyze and interpret data that demonstrates the theorized connection between the protective effects of being a carrier of the cystic fibrosis mutation and reduced symptoms (and increased survival rate) when contracting TB. Stu-dents look for patterns across the data and apply statistical tests to analyze their results. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS4-3. Assessing LS4-3 Working toward LS4-2, LS4-4 |
| 5. | Is It Evolution? | To understand how natural events and human actions affect the evolution of populations over time, students analyze scenarios that include examples of evolutionary and non-evolutionary events. Students draw on disciplinary core ideas about how changes in the physical environment con-tribute to evolutionary changes, and examine the cause-and-effect relationship between resource use by humans and the impact on populations of other organisms. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS4-2. Assessing LS4-2 Working toward LS4-4 Applying LS4-3 |
| 6. | Increasing Timescales | Students examine what happens to a population when natural selection occurs over a longer period of time by obtaining and evaluating information from videos about two species: a species of salamander, which illustrates speciation in progress, and anoles in the Caribbean, which illustrates speciation completed. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS4-4. Assessing LS4-4 Applying LS4-2, LS4-3 Working toward LS4-1, LS4-5 |
| 7. | Extinction | Students investigate changes in life-forms over time, including the evolution of new forms (speciation) and the disappearance of previous forms (extinction). They look for patterns and consider the possible causes of major extinction events due to massive changes in the environment. Working toward LS4-5, LS4-1 |
| 8. | The Anthropocene | Students analyze and interpret data to consider the role of human activity in the loss of biodiversity due to environmental changes. They engage in argument about whether humans are causing another major extinction event. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS4-5. Assessing LS4-5 Working toward LS4-1 |
| 9. | Evidence and the Theory of Evolution | Students obtain information from texts and graphics about several types of evidence to support the theory of evolution. Students synthesize this information, and communicate their understanding of evolution as the unifying principle in life science. Working toward LS4-1 Applying LS4-5 |
| 10. | Applying Evolutionary Thinking | Students evaluate the evidence and trade-offs of different conservation choices for a fictional island. Students apply their under-standing of the types of evidence used to support the theory of evolution to a practical problem: the conservation of biodiversity and sustainability. Students prepare a report outlining their decision. Students are assessed on Performance Expectation HS-LS4-1. Assessing LS4-1 Applying LS4-5 Working toward LS2-7 |
| 11. | The Evolution of Resistance | To better understand how natural selection affects a population, students construct explanations about a medical case study on antibiotic resistance. Students con-duct an experiment that models antibiotic resistance, explain their results, and connect the experiment to natural selection. Applying LS4-4 |
| 12. | Emerging Diseases | Students examine patterns of disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. They obtain information about the possible causes for the growing rate of emerging diseases, and they apply evolutionary thinking as they envision how to predict and prevent future outbreaks. Applying LS4-2, LS4-4 Working toward LS4-6 |
| 13. | Shrinking Salmon | Students develop a system model to make sense of the evolutionary effect of human impact on salmon body size. They explore this complex problem and use their model to ask questions and make connections to the three pillars of sustainability. Working toward LS4-6, ETS1-3, ETS1-4 Applying LS2-7 |
| 14. | Mitigating Change | Students engage in a computer simulation to assess the evolutionary impact of human activity on Chinook body size. Students develop proposed solutions to this problem and test the impact of these solutions on both biodiversity and human systems. Students consider numerous criteria and constraints as they evaluate each solution. Students are assessed on Performance Expectations HS-LS4-6, HS-ETS1-3, HS-ETS1-4, and HS-LS2-7. Assessing LS4-6, ETS1-3, ETS1-4, LS2-7 |
| 15. | Human Impact on Evolution | To make connections between human activity and evolution, students construct a presentation about a focal issue from this unit (e.g., emerging diseases, pollution, antibiotic resistance). In their presentations, students outline their issue, explain its connection to evolution, and suggest strategies to prevent or reduce negative out-comes of this issue on biodiversity and sustainability. Assessing LS2-7 |
Student Book
Science and Global Issues: Biology, Redesigned for the NGSS (SGI: Biology) is a year-long hardbound book with all five units. Like the previous edition, SGI: Biology wraps the entire program around the issue of sustainability, and each unit around a specific Unit Issue to anchor the content.
The Lab-Aids© Science Lab Notebook
The use of a science journal or notebook is strongly recommended for all science classes. A journal not only models the way scientists work but it helps to develop and reinforce students’ science learning and literacy skills.
The LAB-AIDS Science Lab Notebook was designed with “Best Practices” in mind. Each of the 160 LABLOG pages, has a 2-column design with GraphAnywhere, which allows data tables and graphs to be drawn in a fraction of the usual time, and plenty of room to record data, notes, and responses to questions. It is also three-hole punched to allow students to store the entire notebook, or individual completed pages, in their binder.
Teacher Edition
Student and Teacher Portals
In addition to hardbound print books, instructional materials are also available through the online portal. Student navigation through each activity is facilitated by section tabs, and the interactive design allows students to respond directly in their portal. The online student portal is also where helpful resources can be found, like LABsent (for students who are absent from a lab), Spanish text, and embedded assessments.| Science and Global Issues: Biology, Evolution | Item # | Price | Quantity |
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