Florida SC.4.L.16.4
The Standard
Compare and contrast the major stages in the life cycles of Florida plants and animals, such as those that undergo incomplete and complete metamorphosis, and flowering and nonflowering seed-bearing plants.
Florida Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Science
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students put the stages of selected Florida organisms in order and show that each life cycle repeats. They compare butterfly and grasshopper development, then compare flowering plants with cone-bearing plants such as slash pine.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student orders egg, larva, pupa, and adult for a monarch, and egg, nymph, and adult for a grasshopper. They explain that both insects begin as eggs, but only the monarch has larval and pupal stages. They show that orange trees use flowers and fruits to make seeds, while slash pines use cones.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often think every young insect is a caterpillar and every insect has a pupa. They may call a nymph a larva, or treat pine cones as flowers or fruits instead of seed-bearing structures.
How to Assess It
- Give students scrambled life cycle diagrams for a monarch, grasshopper, orange tree, and slash pine. Ask them to order each cycle and write one similarity and difference for each pair.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Cut and sort picture cards for a monarch, grasshopper, orange tree, and slash pine, then connect each ordered cycle with yarn.
Write how monarch and grasshopper life cycles are alike and different, then compare the life cycles of orange trees and slash pines.
Teams race to order stage cards, then classify each organism as complete metamorphosis, incomplete metamorphosis, flowering, or cone-bearing.
Inspect schoolyard flowers and pine cones, then record where seeds form and which life cycle stage is visible.
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Related Standards
- SC.2.L.16.1
Observe and describe major stages in the life cycles of plants and animals, including beans and butterflies.
- SC.4.L.17.1
Compare the seasonal changes in Florida plants and animals to those in other regions of the country.
- SC.4.L.16.1
Identify processes of sexual reproduction in flowering plants, including pollination, fertilization (seed production), seed dispersal, and germination.
- SC.5.L.17.1
Compare and contrast adaptations displayed by animals and plants that enable them to survive in different environments such as life cycles variations, animal be...
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