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Subject Area - 4:
Environment and Ecology
  • Standard Area - 4.2: Watersheds and Wetlands
  • Grade Level - 4.2.8: GRADE 8
Standard - 4.2.8.C

Describe how a diversity index is used to assess water quality.

  • Assessment Anchor - S8.B.3

    Ecological Behavior and Systems

    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.B.3.1 Explain the relationships among and between organisms in different ecosystems and their abiotic and biotic components
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.1.1 Explain the flow of energy through an ecosystem (e.g., food chains, food webs).
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.1.2 Identify major biomes and describe abiotic and biotic components (e.g., abiotic: different soil types, air, water sunlight; biotic: soil microbes, decomposers).
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.1.3 Explain relationships among organisms (e.g., producers/consumers, predator/prey) in an ecosystem.
    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.B.3.2 Identify evidence of change to infer and explain the ways different variables may affect change in natural or human-made systems.
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.2.1 Use evidence to explain factors that affect changes in populations (e.g., deforestation, disease, land use, natural disaster, invasive species).
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.2.2 Use evidence to explain how diversity affects the ecological integrity of natural systems.
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.2.3 Describe the response of organisms to environmental changes (e.g., changes in climate, hibernation, migration, coloration) and how those changes affect survival.
    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.B.3.3 Explain how renewable and nonrenewable resources provide for human needs or how these needs impact the environment.
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.3.1 Explain how human activities may affect local, regional, and global environments.
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.3.2 Explain how renewable and nonrenewable resources provide for human needs (i.e., energy, food, water, clothing, and shelter).
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.3.3 Describe how waste management affects the environment (e.g., recycling, composting, landfills, incineration, sewage treatment).
      • Eligible Content - S8.B.3.3.4 Explain the long-term effects of using integrated pest management (e.g., herbicides, natural predators, biogenetics) on the environment.
  • Assessment Anchor - S8.D.1

    Earth Features and Processes that Change Earth and Its Resources

    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.D.1.1 Describe constructive and destructive natural processes that form different geologic structures and resources.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.1.1 Explain the rock cycle as changes in the solid earth and rock types (igneous – granite, basalt, obsidian, pumice; sedimentary – limestone, sandstone, shale, coal; and metamorphic – slate, quartzite, marble, gneiss).
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.1.2 Describe natural processes that change Earth’s surface (e.g., landslides, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, mountain building, new land being formed, weathering, erosion, sedimentation, soil formation).
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.1.3 Identify soil types (i.e., humus, topsoil, subsoil, loam, loess, and parent material) and their characteristics (i.e., particle size, porosity, and permeability) found in different biomes and in Pennsylvania, and explain how they formed.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.1.4 Explain how fossils provide evidence about plants and animals that once lived throughout Pennsylvania’s history (e.g., fossils provide evidence of different environments).
    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.D.1.2 Describe the potential impact of humanmade processes on changes to Earth’s resources and how they affect everyday life.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.2.1 Describe a product’s transformation process from production to consumption (e.g., prospecting, propagating, growing, maintaining, adapting, treating, converting, distributing, disposing) and explain the process’s potential impact on Earth’s resources.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.2.2 Describe potential impacts of humanmade processes (e.g., manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, mining) on Earth’s resources, both nonliving (i.e., air, water, or earth materials) and living (i.e., plants and animals).
    • Anchor Descriptor - S8.D.1.3 Describe characteristic features of Earth’s water systems or their impact on resources.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.3.1 Describe the water cycle and the physical processes on which it depends (i.e., evaporation, condensation, precipitation, transpiration, runoff, infiltration, energy inputs, and phase changes).
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.3.2 Compare and contrast characteristics of freshwater and saltwater systems on the basis of their physical characteristics (i.e., composition, density, and electrical conductivity) and their use as natural resources.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.3.3 Distinguish among different water systems (e.g., wetland systems, ocean systems, river systems, watersheds) and describe their relationships to each other as well as to landforms.
      • Eligible Content - S8.D.1.3.4 Identify the physical characteristics of a stream and how these characteristics determine the types of organisms found within the stream environment (e.g., biological diversity, water quality, flow rate, tributaries, surrounding watershed).
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