HS-ESS3-3
The standard
Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
Next Generation Science Standards
What this standard means
Students need to use a spreadsheet or provided model to test how resource choices affect people and ecosystems over time. They should change variables like consumption rate, recycling, extraction cost, farming efficiency, land use, or technology, then track outcomes such as population support, resource supply, waste, and biodiversity.
Mastery looks like a student who can explain cause and effect using model outputs, not just run the tool. Students often get stuck treating each variable alone, ignoring tradeoffs, or assuming the model is “truth” instead of a simplified tool with limits and assumptions.
Ways to teach it
- Have students build a spreadsheet model with starting forest area, harvest rate, regrowth rate, habitat loss, and a simple biodiversity index.
- Use the prompt, “Which policy change helped people most while doing the least harm to biodiversity, and what tradeoff remains?”
- Give students three model output graphs and ask them to identify which scenario is most sustainable and cite two data points.
- Connect to local water use by modeling how lawn watering limits, population growth, and drought years affect reservoir levels.
Plan a lesson for HS-ESS3-3
Generate a complete lesson plan aligned to this standard, with objectives, activities, and materials. Free, no account needed.
Related standards
- HS-LS4-6
Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.
- HS-LS2-2
Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of diff...
- HS-ESS3-6
Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
- HS-ETS1-4
Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions withi...