Mississippi Science FB.6

FB.6 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• FB.6.1

  Compare and contrast biotic and abiotic factors.

• FB.6.2

  Use models to analyze the cycling of matter in an ecosystem (e.g., water, carbon dioxide/oxygen, nitrogen).

• FB.6.3

  Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to explain relationships that exist between abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem. Explain how changes in ...

• FB.6.4

  Develop and use models to discuss the climate, flora, and fauna of the terrestrial and aquatic biomes of the world.

• FB.6.5

  Use models to analyze the flow of energy through food chains, webs, and pyramids.

• FB.6.6

  Engage in scientific argument from evidence to distinguish organisms that exist in symbiotic (mutualism, parasitism, commensalism) or co-evolutionary (predator-...

• FB.6.7

  Enrichment: Design solutions to reduce the impact of human activity on the ecosystem.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students identify living and nonliving parts of ecosystems. They use models to track water, carbon, and nitrogen as matter cycles, and energy as it moves through food webs. They compare land and water biomes, explain species relationships, and predict effects of environmental change.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can draw food-web arrows from food to eater and trace carbon from air to plants to animals and back. They can use climate and species data to compare biomes. They can identify mutualism or parasitism from evidence and explain how a drought could change populations.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may call sunlight biotic because plants need it, or think energy cycles back to producers like carbon does. They may point food-web arrows toward prey, label a tick feeding on a deer as mutualism, or think drought affects only plants.

04

How to Assess It

Give students a pond diagram with sunlight, algae, snails, fish, and dissolved carbon dioxide. Ask them to label one abiotic factor, draw two food-web arrows, trace carbon from algae to fish and back to the water, and predict how fewer algae would affect fish.

1. 01

   Build a pond food web with organism cards and yarn, then add a drought card and remove food links that would be lost.

2. 02

   Compare a tundra photo and a coral reef photo; write how temperature and water conditions shape the species shown.

3. 03

   Sort cards showing bees and flowers, ticks and deer, barnacles and whales, and hawks and mice; defend each relationship label.

4. 04

   Use a local pond photo and a fertilizer bag label to predict how runoff could change algae, dissolved oxygen, and fish numbers.

• L.2.3A

  Students will demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence of living things and the environment in which they live.

• ENV.1

  Students will investigate the interdependence of diverse living organisms and their interactions with the components of the biosphere.

• BIO.5

  Students will Investigate and evaluate the interdependence of living organisms and their environment.

• L.2.3B

  Students will demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence of living things.