HS-LS1-3

ScienceGrades 9–12From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes

The standard

Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence that feedback mechanisms maintain homeostasis.

Next Generation Science Standards

What this standard means

Students need to design and run a fair test showing how a living system keeps internal conditions stable when something changes. They should choose variables, collect data over time, use controls when possible, and explain the pattern as a feedback response.

Mastery looks like a clear investigation plan, reliable data, and a claim tied to evidence. Students often confuse any body change with feedback. They may also describe the response without explaining how it helps return the system toward a stable range. Keep the focus on patterns before, during, and after the change.

Ways to teach it

  • Have students measure resting heart rate, step in place for two minutes, then record recovery heart rate every minute for five minutes.
  • Ask students to write: How does heart rate recovery show the body responding to a change and moving back toward stability?
  • Give students a small data table of heart rate recovery and ask them to identify the feedback pattern in two sentences.
  • Connect to athletics by comparing how coaches use recovery heart rate data to adjust training intensity.

Plan a lesson for HS-LS1-3

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Related standards

  • HS-LS2-6

    Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable...

  • 3-PS2-1

    Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.

  • 1-PS4-1

    Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.

  • HS-LS2-3

    Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter and flow of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

Standard text verified against nextgenscience.org on July 10, 2026.

Page updated July 10, 2026.

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