Achievement Scale
Content Area: Biology
Grade Level: 10
Unit: Evolution
Learning Goals: Students will understand:
A. How natural selection is the mechanism that drives evolution of living organisms.
B. The evidence that supports evolutionary theory.
C. How adaptations of organisms relate to their environment.
D. The five conditions that drive evolutionary change according to the Hardy-Weinberg principle.
Score 4:
A4: Explain how evolution has created biodiversity of living organisms on Earth.
B4: Defend a position concerning the statement concerning evolution, such as:
“A complex organism is a higher evolved organism,” or “Evolution is just a theory.”
C4: Predict the phenotypic change in a population given an environmental change.
D4: Suggest a hypothetical situation that would cause evolution in a species and defend the hypothesis.
Score 3:
A3: Explain how changes in population’s phenotypes are caused by natural selection.
A3: Explain sources of genetic variation and how genetic variation increases the probability for the survival of a species.
B3: Describe evidence that supports evolutionary theory.
C3: Discuss why being fit in one environment may not be fit in another.
C3: Explain how genetic drift can cause changes in allele frequencies in a population (founders and bottleneck effects).
D3: Explain the five Hardy-Weinberg factors driving evolutionary change.
Score 2:
A2: Identify examples of the following methods of selection: natural selection, sexual selection, and artificial selection.
A2: Identify factors that must be present for natural selection to occur.
B2: Identify examples of evidence for evolution including: homologous structures, embryology, molecular sequences
(DNA & proteins), biogeography, vestigial structures, and the fossil record.
C2: Explain how an organism’s adaptations allow it to survive and reproduce.
D2: Identify the five factors that drive evolutionary change: non-random mating, small population size (genetic drift),
migration (gene flow), mutations, and natural selection.
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Score 1: With help (being given word banks, manipulated equations, retakes), the student demonstrates a partial
understanding of the simpler details and processes that support the learning goal(s).
Score 0: Even with help, no success
Score 4 Example Assessment Items:
Academic Vocabulary:
How would classifying a new found species 150 years ago
Evolution
be different from today?
Natural selection
Artificial selection
Sexual Selection
Gene pool
Score 3 Example Assessment Items:
Genetic Drift
The theory of evolution predicts that
Founder effect
A. closely related species will show similarities in DNA nucleotide
sequences.
Bottleneck effect
B. if species have changed over time, their genes should have changed.
Gene Flow (immigration, emigration)
C. closely related species will show similarities in amino acid sequences
Speciation
D. all of the above
Fitness
Score 2 Example Assessment Items:
Adaptation
Natural selection is the process by which:
Trait
A. the age of selected fossils is calculated
B. organisms with traits well-suited to their environment survive and
Biogeography
reproduce at a greater rate than less well-adapted organisms in the same
Speciation
environment.
Disruptive Selection
C. acquired traits are passed on from one generation to the next.
Directional Selection
D. All of the above
Stabilizing Selection
Fossils
Homologous structure
Vestigial structure
Species
Genetic (phenotypic) variation
Molecular clock
Gradualism
Punctuated equilibrium
Convergent Evolution
Coevolution
Adaptive Radiation
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