Mississippi Science ZOO.6.8
The Standard
- ZOO.6
- Students will understand the structure and function of phylum Echinodermata, and how they demonstrate the characteristics of living things.
Enrichment: Use an engineering design process to model the water vascular system in hydraulic systems to meet a societal need. *
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Phylum Echinodermata
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain how water pressure extends a sea star’s tube feet and how adhesive helps them attach. They build and improve a hydraulic grabber to retrieve dropped keys for someone who cannot bend down.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can show where water pressure drives movement in both the tube foot and their grabber. Their grabber retrieves a key twice without the user standing. They can explain why the grabber does not attach to surfaces like a tube foot.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think tube feet stick by suction alone, or that water pressure makes them sticky. They may leave air in the tubing and expect the grabber to respond as firmly as it does when the tubing is full of water.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Sketch how pressing one syringe closes the grabber. Label the water’s path and explain why tube feet attach to surfaces but cardboard tongs do not.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Build cardboard tongs with a ruler handle, then connect two water-filled syringes with tubing so the moving plunger closes the jaws.
Ask: How does pressing the syringe compare with a sea star extending a tube foot, and why won't the grabber stick like one?
Challenge pairs to collect a key, coin, and bottle cap in 30 seconds, then adjust their tong tips and try again.
Place a key on the floor 50 cm from a seated student; test whether the grabber retrieves it without standing.
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Printable ZOO.6.8 Worksheet
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