Mississippi Science FB.6.3
The Standard
- FB.6
- Students will understand the interdependence of living organisms and their environment.
Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to explain relationships that exist between abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem. Explain how changes in biotic and abiotic components affect the balance of an ecosystem over time.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Ecological Principals
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use observations, graphs, and sources to explain how water, light, and temperature affect living things. They also explain how organisms change their surroundings and trace what happens after an ecosystem changes.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given rainfall and population graphs, a student explains why plants might decline during a drought and why herbivores might decline later. They use data to support each link and point out what the graphs cannot prove.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat an ecosystem as fixed and assume it always returns to its earlier state. They may also assume that two things changing together proves one caused the other, or overlook how organisms affect soil and water.
How to Assess It
- Show students graphs of rainfall, grass cover, and rabbit numbers across three years. Ask them to explain one likely chain of effects, cite two data points, and name one other possible cause.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Measure soil moisture and count plants in two marked schoolyard squares, then compare the squares without claiming moisture alone caused the difference.
Give pairs a drought graph of rainfall, grass, and rabbits; ask them to write what changed first and what evidence supports their explanation.
Deal cards labeled drought, grass, rabbits, and foxes; have groups arrange two rounds of changes and defend each link.
Show a photo of an algae bloom in a town pond; students trace how fertilizer runoff can change dissolved oxygen and fish populations.
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Printable FB.6.3 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- L.6.3.1
Use scientific reasoning to explain differences between biotic and abiotic factors that demonstrate what living organisms need to survive.
- ENV.1.1
Identify, investigate, and evaluate the interactions of the abiotic and biotic factors that determine the types of organisms that live in major biomes.
- BIO.5.2
Analyze models of the cycling of matter (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water) between abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem and evaluate the abil...
- ENV.1.2
Evaluate evidence in nonfiction text to explain how biological or physical changes within biomes affect populations and communities and how changing conditions ...
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