Virginia SOL 3.4

3.4 is a Standards of Learning science standard. These are the key ideas and practices under it.

• 3.4.a

  populations may adapt over time

• 3.4.b

  adaptations may be behavioral or physical

• 3.4.c

  fossils provide evidence about the types of organisms that lived long ago as well as the nature of their environments.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students identify physical traits and behaviors that help organisms find food, stay safe, and handle their environment. They explain that populations can change over many generations and use fossils to infer past organisms and environments.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

Students can match an organism’s trait or behavior to a specific life need. They can examine a fossil, cite visible evidence, and make a reasonable claim about the organism or its environment.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may think an individual animal grows a needed trait during its lifetime. They may call every body part an adaptation or assume fossils show exactly what an organism looked and acted like.

04

How to Assess It

Give students a picture of webbed duck feet and a fish fossil in rock. Ask them to explain how the feet help and what the fossil suggests about the past environment.

1. 01

   Give groups tools such as spoons, tweezers, and clothespins to collect different foods, then compare which beak model works best.

2. 02

   Ask students to write: How does one physical trait and one behavior help a local animal meet its needs?

3. 03

   Play adaptation match-up with organism, environment, trait, and behavior cards, requiring students to explain each completed set.

4. 04

   Compare photos of local fossils with a Virginia map, then infer which places were once covered by water.

• LS.7

  The student will investigate and understand that adaptations support an organism’s survival in an ecosystem. Key ideas include

• K.7

  The student will investigate and understand that plants and animals have basic needs and life processes. Key ideas include

• 1.5

  The student will investigate and understand that animals, including humans, have basic life needs that allow them to survive. Key ideas include

• 1.4

  The student will investigate and understand that plants have basic life needs and functional parts that allow them to survive. Key ideas include