As of September 30, 2005, the North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium
is no longer in operation.
Goals
The students will:
- Describe the major factors that shape biomes.
- Represent the connections between the factors that determine biome development and plant and animal life.
- Communicate conclusions and predictions using data they have gathered during an investigation.
- Communicate unique qualities of the six biomes of the world.
National Science Education Standards
Standard 7: "Understands how species depend on one another and on the environment for survival"
- "Knows that an organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism's environment, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources and the physical characteristics of the environment."
Standard 15: "Understands the nature of scientific inquiry."
- "Knows that scientists use different kinds of investigations (e.g., naturalistic observation of things or events, data collection, controlled experiments) depending on the questions they are trying to answer."
- "Plans and conducts a simple investigation (e.g., systematic observations, simple experiments to answer questions)."
- "Uses simple equipment and tools to gather scientific data and extend the senses (e.g., rulers, thermometers, magnifiers, microscopes, calculators)."
NCTM National Standards
Standard 1: Mathematics as Problem Solving
- "Use problem-solving approaches to investigate and understand mathematical content;
- "Verify and interpret results with respect to the original problem situation;
- "Acquire confidence in using mathematics meaningfully."
Standard 2: Mathematics as Communication
- "Relate physical materials, pictures, and diagrams to mathematical ideas;
- "Reflect on and clarify their thinking about mathematical ideas and situations;"
Standard 3: Mathematics as Reasoning
- "Understand and apply reasoning processes, with special attention to spatial reasoning and reasoning with proportions and graphs;"
Standard 4: Mathematical Connections
- "See mathematics as an integrated unit;"
South Dakota Integrated Math/Science Benchmarks Addressed
Nature of Science/Number Sense:
- "[U]se numbers to communicate information about an experiment or investigation" (page 122).
Nature of Science/Pattern Relations:
The students will:
- "[I]dentify and communicate patterns that are observed in the natural world" (page 126).
- "[C]ommunicate the pattern relationships used to make sense of information they have collected" (page 126).
- "[D]efend conclusions/predictions based on analysis of established or hypothesized pattern relations" (page 127).
Nature of Science/Statistics:
The students will:
- "[D]escribe their observations concerning the natural world using data they have collected" (page 128).
Models/Statistics:
The students will:
- model data using graphic representations.
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