Virginia SOL LS.6

Science7th Grade

SOL Standard (Key Ideas Cluster)

The student will investigate and understand that populations in a biological community interact and are interdependent. Key ideas include

Virginia Standards of Learning for Science

Cluster contents

LS.6 is a Standards of Learning science standard. These are the key ideas and practices under it.

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students trace feeding links in food webs and predict how population changes affect other organisms. They explain competition, cooperation, symbiosis, and how an organism’s niche helps it survive.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given a food web, students correctly identify predators, prey, and competing species. They use evidence to predict effects of population changes and classify mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
Common Misconceptions: Students may read food web arrows as showing which animal chases another rather than energy flow. They may think all symbiotic relationships benefit both species. They often confuse an organism’s niche with its habitat.
How to Assess It: Show a food web with grass, mice, rabbits, snakes, and hawks. Ask students to predict two effects of fewer mice and explain which species compete for food.

Lesson moves

Build a yarn food web using organism cards, then remove one species and trace the effects through the web.
Write a claim explaining whether two bird species sharing the same seeds will compete, cooperate, or do both.
Play a card sort matching species pairs with predation, competition, mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism.
Examine Chesapeake Bay oyster data and explain how oyster population changes can affect water quality and other species.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to LS.6, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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