Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Office of Academics and Transformation
Department of Mathematics and Science
Science Content and Pacing Middle Q4 – 7th Grade
Facilitator: Cristina Madrigal
Today’s Agenda
8:30 – 8:45
Welcome
8:45 – 9:10
Review of QSBA data (Benchmark Analysis)
9:10 – 10:15
Inquiry-based Life Science Content
 Infusing Florida Standards, NGSSS and the 5Es
10:15 – 10:20
Break
10:20 – 11:45
Inquiry-based Life Science Content - continued
 Infusing Florida Standards, NGSSS and the 5Es
11:45 – 12:45
Lunch
12:45 – 1:30
Reflecting on the Curriculum
1:30 – 2:30
Pre-planning with the Pacing Guide and Technology Integration
 Learning Village
 NBC Learn
 Gizmos
 Florida Achieves
2:30 – 3:30
Developing a 5E Lesson
 Brainstorming and topic selection
 Infusion of Florida Standards State Standards in Math and Language
Arts
Follow up: (Due Friday, 5/23/14)
1. 5E Lesson plan based on content and strategies shared during the session reflecting
strategies that support Florida Standards.
2. Assignment must be uploaded onto designated site. (EdModo Code: ja6jmv)
SC.7.L.15.1
SC.7.N.1.3
SC.7.E.6.6
SC.7.L.15.2
SC.7.E.6.7
SC.7.E.6.1
SC.7.L.17.2
SC.7.E.6.5
SC.7.N.1.1
SC.7.E.6.2
SC.7.L.15.3
SC.7.E.6.3
SC.7.E.6.6
SC.7.E.6.4
SC.7.N.3.1
SC.7.L.17.3
SC.7.L.17.1
SC.7.N.1.5
SC.7.N.1.7
Benchmark Analysis of QSBA Data
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
SC.7.L.17.1 Assessed as SC.7.L.17.2: Explain and illustrate the roles of and relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in
the process of energy transfer in a food web. (Level 3: Strategic Thinking & Complex Reasoning)
Scale
Score/Step 5.0
Learning Progression
Sample Progress Monitoring and
Assessment Activities
 I am able to analyze food webs to determine if they correctly
illustrate the roles, relationships, and transfer of energy among
organisms.
Explain and illustrate the relationships among
decomposers, producers and consumers
including herbivores, carnivores, and
omnivores, in the process of energy transfer in
an ecosystem including food webs and food
chains
 I am able to relate the roles and relationships of organisms in a food
web.
GIZMOS: Food Chain
Design a food web and identify the roles and
relationships among the organisms.
Score/Step 4.0
Explain why the relationships are necessary.
Score/Step 3.0
Target
(Learning Goal)
 I am able to infer the roles and relationships of organisms in a food
web.
 I am able to trace the flow of energy in a food chain.
Score/Step 2.0
Score/Step 1.0
 I am able to identify producers and consumers in a food chain.
BBC: Food Chains Interactive & Test; Food
Pyramids
Identify the roles and relationships among
organisms in a food web in your backyard or
school grounds.
Analyze several food chains and explain what
happens to energy as it flows through the food
chain.
SC.7.L.17.3: Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations, including food,
shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites. (Level 3: Strategic Thinking & Complex Reasoning)
Scale
Learning Progression
Sample Progress Monitoring and
Assessment Activities
Research an ecosystem that has had an
 I am able to hypothesize the effects of limiting factors in an
impact on its populations of organisms. Utilize
ecosystem.
Score/Step 5.0
real-world to discuss the limiting factors that
affected the populations of organisms.
 I am able to analyze some of the effects of limiting factors in an
ecosystem.
Score/Step 4.0
 I am able to identify limiting factors in an ecosystem.
Score/Step 3.0
Target
(Learning Goal)
 I am able to identify factors that affect populations in an ecosystem.
Score/Step 2.0
 I am able to define what an ecosystem is.
Score/Step 1.0
Gizmo: Prairie Ecosystem
Analyze the factors that affect the populations
of grass, prairie dogs, ferrets and foxes in a
prairie ecosystem. Investigate feeding
relationships and determine the food chain.
Develop “limiting factors” scenario cards
(example, all the trees tin a region have died)
and have classmates infer three things that will
happen as a result of the introduction of the
limiting factor to a food web.
Identify and describe various limiting factors in an
ecosystem and their impact on populations.
Study of Abiotic and Biotic Factors: Adapted from: Oh Deer! (Various teachers)
Lesson Overview
Benchmarks:
SC.7.L.17.3 Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations,
including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites.
Description / Abstract of Lesson:
Students will model the effects of resource availability on populations.
Objectives:
1. Identify and describe the essential components of habitat.
2. Describe the importance of good habitat for animals.
3. Define “limiting factors.”
4. Recognize that some fluctuations in wildlife populations are natural as ecological systems
undergo constant change.
Teacher Materials / Technology Connections:
Advanced preparation: photocopy handouts. Find a large, open area suitable for the lab.
Student Materials / Technology Connections:
 Large open area for students to run
 Stopwatch
 Handout
 Pen/pencil
Duration:
60 minutes
Essential Question / Key Vocabulary:
How does resource availability affect a population?
Key Vocabulary: biotic, abiotic, resource, predator, prey, and limiting factor.
Grouping for Instruction:
Whole group
Lesson Lead In / Opening:
Ask students to make a list of things they need in order to stay alive and write a compilation of these
requirements on the board. Explain that each of those requirements is a resource.
Discuss resources that might be necessary for the Florida panther and ask students to predict the effect
of decreasing resources on their population.
Steps To Deliver Lesson:
1. Lesson Lead In/Opening (see above)
2. Review terminology
3. Perform lab
4. Graph and interpret results
Guided Practice:
Direct students to perform lab activity.
Independent Practice:
Direct students to complete Results and Conclusion questions.
Differentiated Instruction:
Use alternative teaching strategies as needed.
Lesson Closure:
Review lab results. Ask students to apply what they have learned and predict how the addition of a
predator might affect the deer population, and for an example using organisms in that live in the
Everglades.
Assessment:
Suggested Assessment Activities: lab report; PowerPoint presentation; five point summary poster;
graphic organizer; brochure; 3-D model; foldable.
Study of Abiotic and Biotic Factors
Student Activity
Benchmarks:
SC.7.L.17.3 Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations,
including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites.
Objectives
1. Identify and describe the essential components of habitat.
2. Define “limiting factors.”
3. Analyze some of the effects of limiting factors in an ecosystem.
Background Information:
A variety of factors affect the ability of wildlife to successfully reproduce and to maintain their populations
over time. Disease, predator/prey relationships, varying impacts of weather conditions from season to
season (e.g., early freezing, heavy snows, flooding, and drought), accidents, environmental pollution, and
habitat destruction and degradation are among these factors.
Some naturally-caused as well as culturally-induced limiting factors serve to prevent wildlife populations
from reproducing in numbers greater than their habitat can support. An excess of such limiting factors,
however, leads to threatening, endangering, and eliminating whole species of animals. The most
fundamental of life’s necessities for any animal are food, water, shelter, and space in a suitable
arrangement. Without these essential components, animals cannot survive.
Wildlife populations are not static. They continuously fluctuate in response to a variety of stimulating and
limiting factors. Natural limiting factors tend to maintain populations of species at levels within predictable
ranges. This kind of “balance in nature” is not static, but is more like a teeter-totter than a balance. This
cycle appears to be almost totally controlled by the habitat components of food, water, shelter, and
space, which are also limiting factors. Habitat components are the most fundamental and thereby the
most critical of limiting factors in most natural settings.
Problem Statement:
“How will resource availability affect the population of a species in an ecosystem?”
Materials:
 Students
 Open space
Procedure:
1. Make a hypothesis based on the problem statement above for the resources being supplied.
2. Obtain a number (1 through 4) from your teachers.
3. Deer = 1
4. Resources = 2, 3, 4
5. Go outside. Deer will all stand on one side of the sidewalk and all the resources will stand on the
opposite side. Stand with backs toward other group.
6. Each student should choose a sign to make for the first round. Students 2 – 4 will decide what
resource they will be and all the deer will decide what resource they are looking for. Resources
will include food, water, and shelter.
7. Make the sign of the resource.
a. Food = Rub stomach with hand
b. Water = Raise hand to the mouth as if to drink from a cup
c. Shelter = Raise arms over head
8. When teacher says “GO,” turn around and face other group. Continue to hold sign.
9. When deer see a student in the habitat making the sign they need, they should walk quickly, but
calmly, to get that student and take them back to the deer side. This represents the deer
successfully meeting its needs and reproducing. Those deer who do not meet their needs remain
in the environment to provide habitat for the other deer in the next round.
10. Record the number of deer in each round for graphing later.
11. Predict what will happen in the next round.
12. Continue steps 3-8 about 10 more times.
Data (Tables and Observations):
Round
Number of Deer
Prediction for Next Round
Data Analysis (Calculations):
Graph the results from your data table and discuss trends in your data.
Discussion:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify and describe the essential components of habitat in regard to the lab.
Describe the relationship between resource availability and population growth and decline.
Define “limiting factors.”
Explain how fluctuations in wildlife populations are natural as ecological systems undergo
constant change.
Extension:
Repeat the experiment adding a “hunter” component. Write out the new procedure and how humans can
affect an ecosystem.
How does resource availability affect the population of a species in an ecosystem?
Claim
Evidence
Reasoning
Conclusion Writing: Claim-Evidence-Reasoning
• Students should support their own written claims with appropriate
justification.
• Science education should help prepare students for this complex
inquiry practice where students seek and provide evidence and
reasons for ideas or claims (Driver, Newton and Osborne, 2000).
Reflecting on the Curriculum
Areas for
Improvement
Strengths
Specific
Recommendations