Phenomena, standards, and progressions

Life Science

The Amplify Science units can be arranged at the discretion of the individual school, but suggested sequences are available. The life science program in the suggested sequence below progressively builds students’ abilities to meet all the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) grade-level performance expectations through a three-dimensional instructional sequence. The following is an overview of the sample sequence of units, a description of the progression of student learning across the year, and a summary of how the sequence meets all NGSS performance expectations for grade 7.

Scroll down to see the phenomenon, student role, and performance expectations by unit, or click to jump to the Progression and Organization, Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts Core Ideas, or Science and Engineering Practices.

Sequence of units

  • Microbiome
  • Metabolism
  • Metabolism Engineering Internship
  • Traits and Reproduction
  • Populations and Resources
  • Matter and Energy in Ecosystems
  • Natural Selection
  • Natural Selection Engineering Internship
  • Evolutionary History

 

Microbiome

The presence of 100 trillion microorganisms living on and in the human body may keep the body healthy.
As student researchers, students must figure out why a fecal transplant cured a patient suffering from a deadly C. difficile infection. In the process, they learn about cells and about interactions among organisms.
  • LS1-1: Living Things Made of Cells
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • LS1-3: Body Systems
  • LS2-1: Resources and Populations
  • LS2-2: Ecosystem Relationships

Metabolism

Elisa, a young patient, feels tired all the time.
Students take on the role of medical students and diagnose a patient whose body systems aren’t working. They learn about cellular respiration and how body systems work together to get molecules to the cells.
  • LS1-1: Living Things Made of Cells
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • LS1-3: Body Systems
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • LS1-8: Sensory Receptors

Metabolism Engineering Internship

Designing health bars with different molecular compositions can effectively meet the metabolic needs of patients or rescue workers.
As food engineering interns, students apply their knowledge of human metabolism, as well as engineering and design concepts, to design a recipe for an energy bar that meets the needs of populations in areas devastated by natural disasters.
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration

Traits and Reproduction

Darwin’s bark spider offspring have different silk flexibility traits, even though they have the same parents.
Working as student genetic researchers, students investigate the causes of surprising variation in spider silk flexibility. Students learn why organisms — even parents, offspring, and siblings — vary in their traits.
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • LS1-4: Behaviors and Structures: Reproduction
  • LS1-5: Growth
  • LS3-1: Gene, Protein, Trait, and Mutations
  • LS3-2: Sexual vs. Asexual Reproduction
  • LS4-5: Artificial Selection and Genetic Engineering
  • LS1-3: Body Systems

Populations and Resources

The size of the moon jelly population in Glacier Sea has increased.
In their role as student ecologists, students work to uncover the cause of the moon jelly population explosion in Glacier Sea. They learn about how organisms interact in an ecosystem to get the resources they need.
  • LS2-1: Resources and Populations
  • LS2-2: Ecosystem Relationships
  • LS2-3: Flow of Energy and Cycling of Matter
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • LS2-5: Ecosystem Services
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • ESS3-3: Designs to Minimize Impact

Matter and Energy in Ecosystems

The biodome ecosystem has collapsed.
Students act as ecologists to investigate a failed biodome. In the process, they learn about how matter, carbon in particular, flows through biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem.
  • LS1-1: Living Things Made of Cells
  • LS1-2: Cell Parts
  • LS1-6: Photosynthesis
  • LS1-7: Cellular Respiration
  • LS2-2: Ecosystem Relationships
  • LS2-3: Flow of Energy and Cycling of Matter
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • PS1-1: Atomic Theory / Molecules
  • PS1-6: Thermal Energy and Chemical Processes
  • ESS2-1: Earth's Materials
  • ESS3-5: Factors for Global Temperature

Natural Selection

The newt population in Oregon State Park has become more poisonous over time.
In the role of biologists, students investigate how a population of rough-skinned newts in Oregon State Park become incredibly poisonous. They learn about variation, adaptation, and the mechanism of natural selection.
  • LS3-1: Gene, Protein, Trait, and Mutations
  • LS4-4: Genetic Variation in Populations
  • LS4-6: Natural Selection
  • LS2-4: Changes Affect Populations
  • LS4-5: Artificial Selection and Genetic Engineering

Natural Selection Engineering Internship

Designing malaria treatment plans that use different combinations of drugs can reduce drug resistance development while helping malaria patients.
As biomedical engineering interns, students apply what they have learned about natural selection as well as engineering and design concepts to develop, test, and refine treatments for drug-resistant malaria.
  • ETS1-1: Criteria and Constraints
  • ETS1-2: Evaluating Solutions
  • ETS1-3: Analyzing Results
  • ETS1-4: Modeling and Iterative Testing
  • LS3-1: Gene, Protein, Trait, and Mutations
  • LS4-4: Genetic Variation in Populations
  • LS4-6: Natural Selection

Evolutionary History

A mystery fossil at the Natural History Museum has similarities with both wolves and whales.
In the role of paleontologists, students investigate a fossil recently excavated in Egypt that could be more closely related to whales or to wolves. They learn how the fossil record helps provide evidence for evolutionary relationships.
  • LS4-1: Fossils
  • LS4-2: Comparative Anatomy,
  • LS4-3: Embryonic Development
  • LS4-6: Natural Selection

Progression and organization

The units in the life science course, which occur in grade 7 in the suggested sequence, are designed and sequenced to build students’ expertise with the grade-level disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). The year begins with a launch unit, Microbiome, in which students are introduced to essential practices, routines, and approaches that will serve as touchstones for learning in all units that follow. An important example of this is the SEP of Engaging in Argument from Evidence. Students are introduced to the practice of scientific argumentation in the launch unit, then build on this understanding through the year, with each unit focusing more in-depth on one aspect of the practice.

Concepts and practices are connected across grade 7. For example, across the sequence of the Microbiome, Metabolism, and Traits and Reproduction units, students are introduced to cells, and deepen their understanding of how cells get what they need and about cells’ functions. Students learn about resources, and how matter and energy flow through living and non-living systems in the Populations and Resources unit and the Matter and Energy in Ecosystems unit that follows. The Natural Selection unit and the Evolutionary History unit are uniquely tied together, as students learn about the smaller scale population changes that occur through the process of natural selection in the Natural Selection unit, then expand that understanding and apply it to understand the larger scale changes that occur through speciation and evolution. The Metabolism Engineering Internship unit follows the Metabolism unit and requires students to apply what they learned in the Metabolism unit to design a solution to an engineering problem. The same is true of the Natural Selection Engineering Internship unit and the Natural Selection unit.

Each unit has a particular emphasis on certain DCIs, CCC’s, and SEP’s, with combinations that work together to support deep explanations of the anchor phenomenon of each unit. For example, in the Populations and Resources unit, investigating a dramatic increase in a moon jelly population leads students to discoveries about Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems (DCI LS2.A), the Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems (DCI LS2.B) and Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience (DCI LS2.C). The unit has a particular emphasis on the CCC of Stability and Change because students must make sense of the dynamic equilibrium of populations and changes to that equilibrium. This unit also includes a focus on the SEP of Developing and Using Models because of the centrality of models — including food webs — to this area of science.

Unit abbreviations: Microbiome (MB), Metabolism (MET), Metabolism Engineering Internship (MET EI), Populations and Resources (PR), Matter and Energy in Ecosystems (MEE), Traits and Reproduction (TR), Natural Selection (NS), Natural Selection Engineering Internship (NS EI), Evolutionary History (EH).

Disciplinary core ideas

Focal   Other Emphasized

MB MET MET EI PR MEE TR NS NS EI EH
LS1.A: Structure and Function (MS-LS1-1, MS-LS1-2, MS-LS1-3)
LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms (MS-LS1-4, MS-LS1-5)
LS1.C: Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms (MS-LS1-6, MS-LS1-7)
LS1.D: Information Processing (MS-LS1-8)
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems (MS-LS2-1, MS-LS2-2)
LS2.B: Cycle of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems (MS-LS2-3)
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience (MS-LS2-4, MS-LS2-5)
LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans (secondary to MS-LS2-5)
LS3.A: Inheritance of Traits (MS-LS3-1, MS-LS3-2)
LS3.B: Variation of Traits (MS-LS3-1, MS-LS3-2)
LS4.A: Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity (MS-LS4-2, MS-LS4-3)
LS4.B: Natural Selection (MS-LS4-4, MS-LS4-5)
LS4.C: Adaptation  (MS-LS4-6)
PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life MS-LS1-7)
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems (MS-ETS1-1)
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions (MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution (MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4)

Crosscutting concepts

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

MB MET MET EI PR MEE TR NS NS EI EH
Patterns
Cause and Effect
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Systems and System Models
Energy and Matter
Stability and Change
Structure and Function

Science and engineering practices

Focal   Other Emphasized   Additional

MB MET MET EI PR MEE TR NS NS EI EH
Asking Questions and Defining Problems
Developing and Using Models
Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
Analyzing and Interpreting Data
Using and Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information