5-8

A3: Describe some structural and behavioral adaptations that allow organisms to survive in a changing environment.

Curriculum Organizing Questions	What is an adaptation? What are some environmental changes organisms must cope with? What are some ways an organism's structure helps it survive changes in the environment? How do species acquire new structural adaptations? what are some ways an organism's behavior helps it survive changes in the environment? What determines how a specific organism behaves? How do organism acquire new behavioral adaptations? What are some ways an organism's physiology helps it survive changes in the environment? How do organisms acquire new physiological adaptations? What happens to species that are not adapted for change? What may happen to a species if its environment changes slowly? Rapidly?
Elaboration	Animals and plants have a great variety of body plans, with different overall structures and arrangements of internal parts to perform basic operations. Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance survival and reproductive success in a particular environment.SFAA p. 60. Please note that behavioral characteristics are given equal importance in the specific ideas.
Specific Ideas	All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment. NSES C3a (5-8). Organisms have a great variety of body plans and internal structures that contribute to their survival and reproductive success in a particular environment. NSES C5b. Species acquire many of their unique characteristics through biological adaptation. NSES C5b. Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology. NSES C5b. Behavior is one kind of response an organism can make to an internal or environmental stimulus. NSES C3c. Behavioral response is a set of actions determined in part by heredity and in part from experience. NSES C3c. An organism's behavior evolves over several generations through adaptation to its environment. NSES C3d. Behaviors include how a species moves, obtains food, reproduces and responds to the environment and danger. NSES C3d. Behaviors are based in the species' evolutionary history. NSES C3d. Physiological changes of an organism evolve over several generations through adaptation to its environment. similar to NSES C5b. Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. NSES C5c.
Developmental & Instructional Implications	Understanding adaptation can be particularly troublesome at this level. Students tend to think that organisms can make deliberate changes in response to environmental change, to confuse non-inherited adaptations acquired in an organism's life time, with adaptive features that are inherited in a population. The National Science Education Standards suggests teachers take advantage of the middle school students' fascination with human biology to introduce the idea of structure-function in the context of human organ systems working together. NSES p. 156. see also Driver p. 52.
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