Vertical Articulation Sample and Activity
One consideration for curriculum planning is how content is distributed over the K-12 career of a student. The focus
for this exercise is grades 3-10. Vertical alignment is a spatial reference to the transition of students through each
grade level. We need to consider how concepts are developed throughout the career of a student, and how science
content builds from grade level to grade level. This articulation activity helps to determine what students should know
before coming to a grade level and what students will be expected to know as they leave that grade level and advance
to the next level.
Use the “Vertical Articulation Sample” to help map the science content for an organizer, within a standard, over
several grade bands. Content organizers appear throughout the Standards document to assist educators in aligning
science ideas across grade levels. For each topic organizer, the development of conceptual understanding is described
from grade 3 through grade 10.
The Vertical Articulation Activity below is a chart that allows a teacher to examine and record the content of their
grade level while making a comparison to the content that comes before and after their grade level. To assist teachers
in mapping the content, a sample, “Overview of Benchmarks” has been provided for the organizer Diversity and
Interdependence of Life. It is an overview of the content showing the development of conceptual understandings for
the benchmarks. Teachers should use the Ohio Academic Content Standards to then enhance their maps with grade
level indicators. Once the mapping is complete, explore how the concepts embodied in this benchmark build and how
the indicators help to inform the overall content of the Life Science Benchmark C. It is important to note within the
grade bands that some content and skills are only featured in one grade level. So it is important to make sure that all
content indicated for a grade band is addressed during instruction.
This information is will ultimately inform and guide the development of lessons so that students develop the content
and skills needed at each level to prepare for success at the next level.
Ohio Department of Education
OAT Toolkit for Science 2007
Vertical Articulation Sample and Activity
Vertical Articulation Activity
Students’ Prior Knowledge as
Identified in Standards
Ohio Department of Education
OAT Toolkit for Science 2007
Grade-Band Content as identified
in the standards that is taught at
my grade level. (Place an
asterisk for content that is only
taught at my grade level for this
grade band.)
Expected Student Knowledge as
Identified by Standards for next
grade level
Vertical Articulation Sample and Activity
Overview of Benchmarks
Diversity and Interdependence of Life 3-10
Grades 3 – 5
Students explore interactions
between organisms and their
environment including the flow of
energy through an ecosystem.
This exploration involves relating
plant and animal structures,
common characteristics,
behaviors of organisms that relate
directly to their survival in the
habitat and how organisms change
their environment.
Ohio Department of Education
OAT Toolkit for Science 2007
Grades 6 – 8
Students explore the diversity and
interdependence of life by tracing
the flow of energy via food webs.
They explain the interaction of
biotic and abiotic factors and the
environment which can cause
slow or fast changes. Students
know that the disruption of energy
flow can by altered by human
activity and examine some
effects.
Grades 9 – 10
Students explain the flow of
energy and the cycling of matter
through biological and ecological
systems. Students examine how
cells and organisms acquire and
release energy. Students explain
how evolutionary relationships
contribute to similarities and
differences of species. They
explain how the variation in
organisms within a species (via
genetic mechanisms) may
increase the survival rate of some
members of that species if
environmental conditions change.
Students recognize adaptive
radiation. Students describe the
biotic and abiotic components of
ecosystems and how they interact
with one another including how
human activities can impact
natural systems.