Project BioEYES: Intermediate (7th/8th grades)
Pennsylvania’s Academic Standards for Science and Technology and Engineering Education, 7th grade
3.1.A: Organisms and Cells
3.1.7.A3: Explain why the life cycles of different organisms have varied lengths.
3.1.B: Genetics
3.1.7.B1: Explain how genetic instructions influence inherited traits. Identify Mendelian patterns of inheritance.
3.1.C: Evolution
3.1.7.C2: Explain that mutations can alter a gene and are the original source of new variations in a population.
3.4.E: The Designed World
3.4.6.E1: Describe how advances and innovations in medical technologies are used to improve health care.
Science as Inquiry:
Design and conduct a scientific investigation and understand that current scientific knowledge guides scientific investigations.
Use appropriate tools and technologies to gather, analyze, and interpret data and understand that it enhances accuracy and allows scientists to analyze and quantify results of investigations.
Develop descriptions, explanations, and models using evidence and understand that these emphasize evidence, have logically consistent arguments, and are based on scientific principles, models, and theories.
Analyze alternative explanations and understanding that science advances through legitimate skepticism.
Use mathematics in all aspects of scientific inquiry.
Understand that scientific investigations may result in new ideas for study, new methods, or procedures for an investigation or new technologies to improve data collection.
Pennsylvania Assessment Anchors and Eligible Content: Science Grade 8
S8.A.1: Reasoning and Analysis
S8.A.1.1.2: Explain how certain questions can be answered through scientific inquiry and/or technological design.
S8.A.2: Processes, Procedures, and Tools of Scientific Investigations
S8.A.2.1.2: Use space/time relationships, define concepts operationally, raise testable questions, or formulate hypotheses.
S8.A.2.1.5: Use evidence from investigations to clearly communicate and support conclusions.
S8.A.2.2.3: Describe ways technology (e.g., microscope, telescope, micrometer, hydraulics, barometer) extends and enhances human abilities for specific purposes.
S8.B.1: Structure and Function of Organisms
S8.B.1.1.2: Compare similarities and differences in internal structures of organisms (e.g., invertebrate/vertebrate, vascular/nonvascular, single- celled/multi-celled) and external structures (e.g., appendages, body segments, type of covering, size, shape).
S8.B.2: Continuity of Life
S8.B.2.1.3: Explain that mutations can alter a gene and are the original source of new variations.
S8.B.2.2.2: Recognize that the gene is the basic unit of inheritance, that there are dominant and recessive genes, and that traits are inherited.