Mississippi Science L.3.4.1
The Standard
- L.3.4
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of how adaptations allow animals to satisfy life needs and respond both physically and behaviorally to their environment.
Obtain data from informational text to explain how changes in habitats (both those that occur naturally and those caused by organisms) can be beneficial or harmful to the organisms that live there.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Adaptation and Diversity
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students read about a change in a habitat and find facts about what caused it. They use those facts to explain how the change helps some organisms and harms others.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can tell whether a change came from weather or from an organism, such as a beaver. They can name an animal that benefits and one that is harmed, then point to facts in the text that support both answers.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume a habitat change affects every animal the same way. They may confuse a beaver-built dam with a weather change or give an opinion instead of using a fact from the reading.
How to Assess It
- Give students this text: After heavy rain, a meadow flooded, giving frogs more water but covering rabbits' food; beavers built a dam that sheltered fish but flooded a fox den. Ask them to name one benefit and one harm from each change and underline the words that support each answer.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Use a tray, clay, water, and paper fish and foxes to model a beaver dam; match each change to a fact on a short card.
Have pairs explain how a flood can help frogs but hurt rabbits, pointing to one fact for each animal in a short article.
Give teams flood, drought, and beaver dam cards; they match animal cards, label help or harm, and cite facts from a short reading.
Show a photo of a beaver dam and a caption about sheltered fish and flooded burrows; students name who benefits and who loses shelter.
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Printable L.3.4.1 Worksheet
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Related Standards
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Evaluate and communicate findings from informational text or other media to describe and to compare how animals interact with other animals and plants in the en...
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- L.2.3A.1
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- 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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