This resource has 67 correlations with the National Standards.  
[HIDE CORRELATIONS]

• Life Science
  • The characteristics of organisms
    • Organisms have basic needs. For example, animals need air, water, and food; plants require air, water, nutrients, and light. (K-4)
    • Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs can be met. (K-4)
    • Each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking. (K-4)
    • Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues. (K-4)
    • The behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues (such as hunger) and by external cues (such as a change in the environment). (K-4)
    • Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs can be met. (K-4)
    • The world has many different environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of organisms. (K-4)
  • Life cycles of organisms
    • Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms. (K-4)
    • Plants and animals closely resemble their parents. (K-4)
    • Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the organism, but other characteristics result from an individual's interactions with the environment. Inherited characteristics include the color of flowers and the number of limbs of an animal. (K-4)
  • Organisms and environments
    • All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other animals eat animals that eat the plants.
    • 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.
    • When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.
    • All organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial.
  • Structure and function in living systems
    • Living systems at all levels of organization demonstrate the complementary nature of structure and function (5-8)
  • Reproduction and heredity
    • Reproduction is a characteristic of all living systems; because no individual organism lives forever, reproduction is essential to the continuation of every species. (5-8)
    • In many species, including humans, females produce eggs and males produce sperm. (5-8)
    • Plants also reproduce sexually--the egg and sperm are produced in the flowers of flowering plants. (5-8)
  • Regulation and behavior
    • 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. (5-8)
    • Regulation of an organism's internal environment involves sensing the internal environment and changing physiological activities to keep conditions within the range required to survive (homeostasis). (5-8)
    • Behavior is one kind of response an organism can make to an internal or environmental stimulus. (5-8)
    • A behavioral response requires coordination and communication at many levels, including cells, organ systems, and whole organisms.
    • Behavioral response is a set of actions determined in part by heredity and in part from experience. (5-8)
    • An organism's behavior evolves through adaptation to its environment. (5-8)
    • How a species moves, obtains food, reproduces, and responds to danger are based in the species' evolutionary history (5-8)
  • Populations and ecosystems
    • A population consists of all individuals of a species that occur together at a given place and time. (5-8)
    • All populations living together and the physical factors with which they interact compose an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • Populations of organisms can be categorized by the function they serve in an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • Plants and some micro-organisms are producers--they make their own food. (5-8)
    • All animals, including humans, are consumers, which obtain food by eating other organisms. (5-8)
    • Food webs identify the relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in an ecosystem. (5-8)
    • For ecosystems, the major source of energy is sunlight. (5-8)
    • Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis. (5-8)
    • Energy passes from organism to organism in food webs (5-8)
    • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition.
    • Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem. (5-8)
  • Diversity and adaptations of organisms
    • Millions of species of animals, plants, and microorganisms are alive today. (5-8)
    • Although different species might look dissimilar, the unity among organisms becomes apparent from an analysis of internal structures, the similarity of their chemical processes, and the evidence of common ancestry. (5-8)
    • Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations (5-8)
    • Species acquire many of their unique characteristics through biological adaptation, which involves the selection of naturally occurring variations in populations. (5-8)
    • Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance survival and reproductive success in a particular environment (5-8)
    • Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. (5-8)
    • Fossils indicate that many organisms that lived long ago are extinct. (5-8)
  • Biological evolution
    • Species evolve over time. (9-12)
    • Evolution is the consequence of the interactions of the potential for a species to increase its numbers. (9-12)
  • Interdependence of organisms
    • Energy flows through ecosystems in one direction, from photosynthetic organisms to herbivores to carnivores and decomposers. (9-12)
    • Organisms both cooperate and compete in ecosystems. (9-12)
    • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. (9-12)
    • Human beings live within the world's ecosystems. (9-12)
    • Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. (9-12)
    • Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected. (9-12)
  • Matter, energy, and organization in living systems
    • The energy for life primarily derives from the sun. (9-12)
  • Behavior of organisms
    • Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism's own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. (9-12)
    • The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. (9-12)
    • Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli. (9-12)
    • Like other aspects of an organism's biology, behaviors have evolved through natural selection. (9-12)
    • Behaviors often have an adaptive logic when viewed in terms of evolutionary principles. (9-12)

• Science as Inquiry
  • Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
    • Ask a question about objects, organisms, and events in the environment. (K-4)
    • Plan and conduct a simple investigation. (K-4)
    • Employ simple equipment and tools to gather data and extend the senses. (K-4)
  • Understandings about scientific inquiry
    • Scientific investigations involve asking and answering a question and comparing the answer with what scientists already know about the world. (K-4)
    • Types of investigations include describing objects, events, and organisms; classifying them; and doing a fair test (experimenting).
    • Scientists develop explanations using observations (evidence) and what they already know about the world (scientific knowledge). Good explanations are based on evidence from investigations. (K-4)

• Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Changes in environments
    • Environments are the space, conditions, and factors that affect an individual's and a population's ability to survive and their quality of life.
    • Changes in environments can be natural or influenced by humans. Some changes are good, some are bad, and some are neither good nor bad.

• History and Nature of Science
  • Science as a human endeavor
    • Pursuing science as a career or as a hobby can be both fascinating and intellectually rewarding. (9-12)
  • Nature of science
    • Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.