Mississippi Science L.3.2.5
The Standard
- L.3.2
- Students will demonstrate an understanding that through reproduction, the survival and physical features of plants and animals are inherited traits from parent organisms but can also be influenced by the environment.
Research to justify the concept that traits can be influenced by the environment (e.g., stunted growth in normally tall plants due to insufficient water, changes in an arctic fox’s fur color due to light and/or temperature, or flamingo plumage).
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Reproduction and Heredity
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use photos, readings, or measurements to find evidence that surroundings can affect how a trait appears. They explain how water, light, temperature, or food could account for a difference they observe.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use watering records and measured heights to explain why one bean plant grew less than another. They can support a second example, such as flamingo feather color, with a fact from a reading.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume a short plant inherited short height, even when it received too little water. They may think a fox chooses its winter coat or that food changes a flamingo’s genes.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Two bean plants started at 4 cm; after four weeks, the regularly watered plant was 18 cm and the rarely watered plant was 9 cm. What likely affected their heights, and which numbers support your answer?
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Measure same-scale photos of two bean seedlings with rulers, then compare their heights with watering logs printed below.
Read a short fact card about pigments in flamingo food, then write a claim about feather color and one supporting fact.
Play trait detective: sort cards showing eye color, dry-soil bean height, and seasonal fox fur into inherited or environment-influenced piles.
Use a school garden watering log and plant-height chart to recommend which tomato bed needs more water.
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Related Standards
- L.8.2B.1
Construct an argument based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
- L.8.4A.2
Construct explanations about how genetic factors and environmental factors (e.g., food intake, interactions with other organisms, etc.) lead to the growth, surv...
- L.3.2
Students will demonstrate an understanding that through reproduction, the survival and physical features of plants and animals are inherited traits from parent ...
- L.3.2.4
Obtain and communicate data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from both parent organisms and that variations of these traits exi...
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