Oklahoma Science B.LS4.2

ScienceGrades 9–12Biological Unity and Diversity

The Standard

Construct an explanation based on evidence that biological diversity is influenced by (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.

Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science (2026)

Teacher's field guide

What This Standard Means

What Students Need to Do: Students explain why a population can produce more young than its food and space can support. They use evidence to show how inherited differences from mutation and sexual reproduction affect which organisms survive and reproduce.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given population data, students identify the resource limit and the traits parents can pass to offspring. They explain why some traits become more common over generations and how that changes diversity in the population.
Common Misconceptions: Students may say an organism develops a helpful trait because it needs one, then passes that trait to its offspring. They may also think competition causes useful mutations or that the strongest organisms always reproduce.
How to Assess It: Exit ticket: Beetles produce 200 young, but food supports only 80; inherited shell colors vary, and birds eat more light beetles. Explain how mutation, sexual reproduction, limited food, and survival could affect shell colors over several generations.

Lesson moves

Ways to Teach It

Place light and dark paper beetles on brown paper; remove visible beetles, allot ten food tokens, then draw offspring traits from surviving parent cards.
Write three sentences explaining how mutation, sexual reproduction, and limited food could change a rabbit population that produces more kits than its habitat supports.
Give groups beetle trait cards and a changing habitat card; have them rank which beetles leave more offspring and defend their rankings.
Show printed counts of pesticide-resistant mosquitoes before and after spraying; ask how the survivors could change next year's population.

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