Mississippi Science FB.3.3
The Standard
- FB.3
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of how the structure of living organisms supports the essential functions of life.
Compare and contrast active and passive cellular transport. Analyze the movement of water across a cell membrane in hypotonic, isotonic, and hypertonic solutions.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Organization and Energy in Living Systems
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students compare movement down a concentration gradient with movement against it. They predict which way water moves when the solution outside a cell has less, equal, or more dissolved material than the cell.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can identify diffusion and osmosis as passive, and explain that moving a substance against its gradient requires energy. They can predict whether an animal cell will swell, stay the same size, or shrink in each solution.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often think water moves toward the side with more water, rather than the side with more dissolved material. They may also think equal concentrations mean water stops moving, instead of moving both ways with no net change.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: An animal cell has 5% salt inside and sits in 10% salt outside. Name the outside solution, predict the cell's size change, and explain how water movement differs from pumping salt out of the cell.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Fill dialysis tubing with 10% sucrose, place it in water, and compare its mass before and after 20 minutes.
Ask students to write an answer to: Why can an animal cell shrink in salt water if salt cannot cross its membrane?
Give pairs 1%, 5%, and 10% salt cards and a 5% cell card; have them sort each by water movement and tonicity.
Compare a wilted lettuce leaf before and after soaking it in water, then explain where water moved.
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Printable FB.3.3 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to FB.3.3, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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Related Standards
- BIO.1D.2
Develop and use models to explain how the cell deals with imbalances of solute concentration across the cell membrane (i.e., hypertonic, hypotonic, and isotonic...
- BIO.1D
Students will describe the structure of the cell membrane and analyze how the structure is related to its primary function of regulating transport in and out of...
- BIO.1D.1
Plan and conduct investigations to prove that the cell membrane is semi-permeable, allowing it to maintain homeostasis with its environment through active and p...
- FB.2.5
Investigate how the properties of water (e.g., cohesion, adhesion, heat capacity, solvent properties) contribute to the maintenance of living cells and organism...
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