Describe characteristics of living things that help to identify and classify them.

Describe the basic needs of living things and their dependence on light, food, air, water, and shelter.

Illustrate how plants and animals go through predictable life cycles that include birth, growth, development, reproduction, and death.

Identify the structures in plants that are responsible for food production, support, water transport, reproduction, growth, and protection.

Explain how living things are dependent upon other living and nonliving things for survival. 

• Explain what happens to an organism when its food supply, access to water, shelter or space (niche / habitat) is changed.
• Identify similarities and differences between living organisms, ranging from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms through the use of microscopes, video, and other media.

Identify sources of energy.

Identify organisms that are dependent on one another in a given ecosystem.

•  Define habitat and explain how a change in habitat affects an organism.

Identify changes in the environment over time.

Identify plants and animals found in a wetland.

Identify plants and animals that live in lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands.

Identify technology used in agriculture.

• Identify tools and machinery used in agricultural processes.

• Distinguish between scientific fact and opinion. • Ask questions about objects, organisms, and events. • Understand that all scientific investigations involve asking and answering questions and comparing the answer with what is already known. • Plan and conduct a simple investigation and understand that different questions require different kinds of investigations. • Use simple equipment (tools and other technologies) to gather data and understand that this allows scientists to collect more information than relying only on their senses to gather information. • Use data/evidence to construct explanations and understand that scientists develop explanations based on their evidence and compare them with their current scientific knowledge. • Communicate procedures and explanations giving priority to evidence and understanding that scientists make their results public, describe their investigations so they can be reproduced, and review and ask questions about the work of other scientists.

Understand that plants and animals closely resemble their parents.

PATTERNS Identify characteristics that appear in both parents and offspring.

• Distinguish between scientific fact and opinion.
• Ask questions about objects, organisms, and events.
• Understand that all scientific investigations involve asking and answering questions and comparing the answer with what is already known.
• Plan and conduct a simple investigation and understand that different questions require different kinds of investigations.
• Use simple equipment (tools and other technologies) to gather data and understand that this allows scientists to collect more information than relying only on their senses to gather information.
• Use data/evidence to construct explanations and understand that scientists develop explanations based on their evidence and compare them with their current scientific knowledge.
• Communicate procedures and explanations giving priority to evidence and understanding that scientists make their results public, describe their investigations so they can be reproduced, and review and ask questions about the work of other scientists.

Recognize that plants survive through adaptations, such as stem growth towards light and root growth downward in response to gravity.

Recognize that many plants and animals can survive harsh environments because of seasonal behaviors (e.g. hibernation, migration, trees shedding leaves).

Describe animal characteristics that are necessary for survival.

CONSTANCY AND CHANGE Recognize that fossils provide us with information about living things that inhabited the Earth long ago

• Distinguish between scientific fact and opinion.
• Ask questions about objects, organisms, and events.
• Understand that all scientific investigations involve asking and answering questions and comparing the answer with what is already known.
• Plan and conduct a simple investigation and understand that different questions require different kinds of investigations.
• Use simple equipment (tools and other technologies) to gather data and understand that this allows scientists to collect more information than relying only on their senses to gather information.
• Use data/evidence to construct explanations and understand that scientists develop explanations based on their evidence and compare them with their current scientific knowledge.
• Communicate procedures and explanations giving priority to evidence and understanding that scientists make their results public, describe their investigations so they can be reproduced, and review and ask questions about the work of other scientists.

Classify plants and animals according to the physical characteristics that they share.

Structure and Function of Organisms

Continuity of Life

Ecological Behavior and Systems

Identify and describe the functions of basic structures of animals and plants (e.g., animals [skeleton, heart, lungs]; plants [roots, stem, leaves]).

Classify living things based on their similarities and differences.

Describe the basic needs of plants and animals and their dependence on light, food, air, water, and shelter.

Describe how plants and animals go through life cycles.

Identify adaptations of plants and animals that have helped them to survive.

Identify and describe plant and animal characteristics that are necessary for survival.

Identify characteristics for plant and animal survival in different environments (e.g., desert, forest, ocean).

Identify the living and nonliving components of an ecosystem (e.g., living [plants, animals]; nonliving [water, soil, air]).

Describe the interactions between living and nonliving components of an ecosystem (e.g., plants [water, sunlight]; animals [air, shelter]).

Describe what happens to an animal when its habitat is changed.

Describe how changes in the environment (e.g., fire, flood) can affect an ecosystem.

Describe how human interactions with the environment impact an ecosystem (e.g., road construction, pollution, urban development, dam building).