FACTivity – Grow Where You’re Planted
In this FACTivity, you will research plants growing in your USDA hardiness zone and make predictions about how climate change may impact what plants will grow in your hardiness zone in the future.
Materials:
- Provided graphic organizer
- Library or computer access
Standards addressed in this Activity:
Next Generation Science Standards
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a set of K-12 science education standards emphasizing inquiry-based learning, real-world applications, and integrating engineering practices, aiming to deepen understanding of science while promoting critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
- HS-LS2-7Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
- HS-LS4-3Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.
- HS-LS4-4Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.
- HS-LS4-5Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species.
- HS-LS4-6Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.
- MS-LS1-5Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.
- MS-LS2-1Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
- MS-LS2-5Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- MS-LS4-4Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment.