Mississippi Science MAQ.7

ScienceGrades 9–12Marine and Aquatic Science I & II

Standard Cluster

Students will investigate characteristics of aquatic chordates. Characterize aquatic representatives of the following taxa: Hemichordata, Urochordata, Cephalochordata, and Vertebrata (including Agnatha, Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia). Identify characteristics that are shared and derived using graphical representations of animal evolution and develop cladograms/phylogenetic trees. Utilize a dichotomous key to identify select aquatic vertebrates. Differentiate various life cycles found among animals (e.g., egg, tadpole, and adult stages of the amphibian life cycle; leathery eggs on land in reptiles; hard-shelled eggs in Aves; placental, marsupial, or monotremes in mammals; viviparous, ovoviviparous, and oviparous animals). Dissect representative taxa (e.g., shark, fish); collect data; compare their internal and external anatomy; and analyze, explain, and communicate results. Using key morphological and physiological adaptations found within aquatic vertebrate taxa, assess how animals interact with their environment to determine their ecological roles. Enrichment: Given a niche in a specific environment, use an engineering design process to design an animal, listing characteristics based on your knowledge of shared and derived characteristics, internal and external anatomy, and how the animal would adapt morphologically and physiologically relative to its ecological role and specific environment. *

2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Vertebrate Consumers

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MAQ.7 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

Teacher's field guide

What This Cluster Means

What Students Need to Do

Students compare acorn worms, tunicates, lancelets, and vertebrate groups by body traits and life cycles. They build cladograms and use a dichotomous key to identify aquatic vertebrates. They dissect a fish, compare it with a shark, and explain how anatomy relates to habitat and feeding.

What Mastery Looks Like

Students justify branches on a cladogram with traits and place acorn worms outside the chordates. They use a key to identify an unknown animal and distinguish eggs laid, eggs retained, and live birth. Their dissection notes compare organs and link anatomy to feeding or movement.

Common Misconceptions

Students may call acorn worms chordates because they have pharyngeal slits, though they lack a true notochord. They may group sharks with bony fish because both have fins and gills. They may assume all sharks lay eggs.

How to Assess It

Exit ticket: Give students labeled photos of a lamprey, shark, and tuna, plus an unlabeled shark photo. Ask them to write a two-choice key to identify the unknown, then draw a cladogram using jaws and bony skeleton.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

  1. Dissect a market fish, sketch its gills and organs, then compare your sketches with labeled shark dissection photos.

  2. Show diagrams of frog, turtle, and dolphin reproduction; ask which offspring develop in water, in a shelled egg, or inside a parent.

  3. Give teams animal and trait cards for acorn worms, tunicates, lancelets, lampreys, sharks, and tuna; race to build cladograms.

  4. On a printed estuary food web, place stingrays and dolphins, then explain how bottom-facing mouths and air breathing shape their feeding.

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